EU and US to protect citizen data on more equal grounds

The European Commission and the US pledge to better protect personal data that is exchanged for investigative purposes. Among other things, European citizens are given the same recovery options as Americans in the event of privacy breaches.

The ‘umbrella agreement’, as the European Commission calls the system of agreed rules, should better protect exchanged personal data such as names, addresses and criminal background. The EU and the US exchange this data for the purpose of crime prevention and investigation.

In the event of an infringement of the processing of personal data of Americans, those citizens can seek redress in European courts, but the other way around is not yet the case. The new agreement must, however, offer more equivalent guarantees. EU citizens will soon be able to go to American courts if the American authorities deny them access to their data, refuse to modify that data or release their data unlawfully.

Under certain conditions, citizens are given the right to inspect exchanged data relating to them, although the European Commission does not clarify exactly what those conditions are. Furthermore, the EU and the US promise not to use the exchanged data for purposes other than for criminal investigations and also not to keep the data for longer than necessary. That retention period should be made public by the authorities. When transferring data from Americans and Europeans to countries in other parts of the world, permission is now required from the country where the data originated.

Furthermore, the agreement must ensure that authorities inform each other of privacy violations regarding the exchanged data. If necessary, the person to whom the infringement relates must also be informed. As early as 2009 the European Parliament called for better protection of data when exchanged with the US.

Incidentally, the agreement will not take effect until the US signs the Judicial Redress Bill. That law is part of Washington’s actions to restore Europe’s confidence in the US. That confidence was seriously dented by Snowden’s revelations about the massive tapping of European politicians by the NSA, among others.