Deal US and Europe must make it difficult to pass on data citizens to third parties

An upcoming deal between the European Commission and the US government should ensure that companies can no longer just pass on data to third parties. In addition, both governments will check whether intelligence services are complying with the rules.

The deal is not yet there, but it should come soon, says a member of the European Commission according to business newspaper The Wall Street Journal. The deal is intended to replace Safe Harbor, the agreements both governments made at the beginning of this century and which a judge declared invalid earlier this month.

The new deal regulates the conditions under which American companies are allowed to store and process data from European users on American servers. In addition, both governments will monitor the way in which companies do this more closely, resulting in stricter rules about the conditions under which companies may pass on customer data to other companies. This may have consequences for advertising companies, for example, which are now collecting data from citizens on a large scale. There will be an annual check on the way in which intelligence services access citizens’ data.

Privacy watchdogs in European member states have set the deadline for the end of January. After that, they will fine companies if they still process data according to the invalid Safe Harbor principles. The European Court of Justice declared the old deal invalid, because the massive surveillance uncovered by whistleblower Edward Snowden in the US meant that data from Europeans could no longer be considered safe on the other side of the Atlantic. European politicians have been concluding a new treaty on the processing of data on American servers for a few years now.