EU dissatisfied with US explanation over Yahoo’s email scanning

Věra Jourová, European Commissioner for Justice, is not satisfied with the explanation given by the US government about the scanning of e-mails by Yahoo. The provider did that because of an order from a secret American court.

Jourová says in an interview with Reuters that she is not satisfied with the US explanation, because it came late and was broadly worded. According to her, “this is not how the EU sees a good, rapid and complete exchange of information” and will make this clear to the Americans at the next opportunity. She adds: “I understand that the US side cannot be completely clear when it comes to topics such as national security.” Jourová nevertheless expects to receive more information about the reasons why the US ordered Yahoo to scan emails.

The scan of the emails is said to be a test case for the Privacy Shield agreement, which was officially adopted in July last year, according to an EU official. Because although Yahoo does not participate in the agreement and the scanning for the creation of the Privacy Shield took place, an important part of the agreement is that the US does not intercept data of EU citizens on a large scale.

Another element is that there is an annual review of the agreement. The first review will take place this summer under new President Donald Trump. Jourová says she does not expect any problems around the Trump presidency: “I expect the Trump administration to know what is good for business, and the Privacy Shield is.”

Yahoo’s scanning of the emails is the result of an order from the US FISA court, which assigns permissions from the security and intelligence services, Reuters reported earlier. Yahoo is said to have been ordered to search all incoming emails for certain characteristics.