The viability of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield under Trump is questioned

What happened?

As Bloomberg Law Privacy & Data Security just reported, officials of the European Union stated that they will watch carefully for any signs of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump turning around the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement.

Vera Jourova, EU Justice Commissioner, can be quoted that the European Union would “closely monitor the respect of protection standards and the correct implementation” of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield “under the new U.S. leadership”.

Why are the concerns raised?

The questions are asked is due to the fact that under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield data transfers are based on respect for European privacy rights in case European personal data is transferred to the USA for commercial purposes. However, as Trump made comments that can be interpreted so that such privacy rights might be disregarded, during the U.S. presidential campaig, concerns are raised.

Adina-Ioana Valean, Member of the European Parliament, gave a speech at the European Data Protection and Privacy Conference in Brussels and explained that “a lot of things were said” during the U.S. presidential campaign. Therefore, she concluded that “we should sit and wait for the next move and then we can judge”.