The Article 29 Working Party talks about the EU-U.S. Umbrella Agreement

2. November 2016

The Article 29 Working Party published a statement on the EU-U.S. Umbrella agreement at the end of October.

On one side, the statement shows signs of support for the EU-U.S. Umbrella Agreement. However on the other side, it delivers recommendations in order to make sure that the agreement is compliant with European data protection law.

In general, the Article 29 Working Party supports the creaction of a general data protection framework in order for international data transfers to be compliant with national, European and international data protection laws.  Therefore, the Article 29 Working Party elaborates that the respective agreement “considerably strengthens the safeguards in existing law enforcement bilateral treaties with the U.S., some of which were concluded before the development of the EU data protection framework”. 

However, it is also mentioned that clarification is needed in terms of definitions, for example how to define personal data and data processing, due to the fact that European and U.S law have different opinions on what is meant by these terms.