ITI: Executive Order and DOJ Regulations to Enhance Intelligence Safeguards, Implement the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Restore Business Certainty While Upholding Citizens’ Rights
WASHINGTON — Today, global tech trade association ITI welcomed President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities, which articulates the steps the U.S. will take to implement the European Union-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF) agreement announced by President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in March 2022. The Executive Order, together with the Department of Justice Regulations signed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, will help stabilize transatlantic data flows via transfer mechanisms such as Standard Contractual Clauses that were thrown into doubt following the annulment of the U.S.-EU Privacy Shield in 2020. The European Union will now need to adopt an adequacy decision under the GDPR to make the EU-U.S. DPF program, the successor to the Privacy Shield, operational.
“The movement of data across borders is the foundation of global trade and innovation in an increasingly digitized world,” said ITI’s President and CEO Jason Oxman. “Today’s actions will help restore business certainty and safeguard continuity of key business operations as data moves across the Atlantic, while also upholding European citizens’ fundamental rights, and the security and public safety interests of the U.S., EU, and other qualified states. We appreciate the Biden Administration’s attention to this critical issue and look forward to working with the European Union to implement the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework over the coming months.”
The more than 16 million jobs and $7.1 trillion in EU-U.S. economic activity annually that are underpinned by transatlantic data flows have been in jeopardy since the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) decision in the Schrems II case to invalidate the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield in 2020. Therefore, the importance of establishing the new EU-U.S. DPF to address the crucial issues raised by the CJEU – providing privacy and civil liberties safeguards to ensure the necessity and proportionality of U.S. signals intelligence activities and establishing an independent and binding redress mechanism to enable EU and other citizens to vindicate their rights – cannot be overestimated.
As the premier advocate for the global tech industry, ITI has called on U.S. and EU policymakers to reach a new agreement to ensure businesses can share data across the Atlantic. Earlier this year, ITI welcomed the announcement (opens in a new tab) of what was then called the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework, following its call on the Biden Administration to prioritize an agreement in its 2022 Action Plan for U.S. Policymakers (opens in a new tab). ITI also highlighted the critical importance of cross-border data flows to the U.S. economy in its 2021 U.S. Competitiveness Agenda (opens in a new tab). Read more on ITI’s work on this issue:
- ITI Blog: Advancing Transatlantic Relations (opens in a new tab)
- We Are Hopeful That an EU-U.S. Data Transfer Agreement is Within Reach (opens in a new tab)
- ITI Commends EDPB for Upholding Risk-based Approach for Transatlantic Data Flows (opens in a new tab)
- Global Business Community Calls on EU to Safeguard International Data Flows (opens in a new tab)
- ITI Welcomes Intensified Commitment from U.S. and EU on Privacy Shield Negotiations (opens in a new tab)
- Global Industry Asks EU and U.S. Leaders to Work Towards Legal Certainty for Cross-Border Data Transfers (opens in a new tab)
- ITI: New U.S. Government Guidance on EU-U.S. Data Transfers Helpful to Companies Impacted by Schrems II Decision (opens in a new tab)
- Tech Industry Welcomes Initiation of Discussions on a New EU-U.S. Data Transfer Agreement (opens in a new tab)
- ITI Blog: Schrems II: A Moment for Calm, and Action (opens in a new tab)
- ITI Urges Transatlantic Policymakers to Begin Negotiations on New EU-U.S. Data Transfer Agreement Following Schrems II Decision (opens in a new tab)
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