Europe can suspend new data transfer treaty over privacy concerns

The new Safe Harbor treaty, which allows companies to store data belonging to Europeans on servers in the United States, includes a clause that allows the EU to suspend the treaty if there are concerns about the way the United States handles data.

That clause will be included in the treaty, which European Commissioner Vera Jourova hopes will come into effect next month, Reuters news agency reported. There are no further details about the new treaty yet. The clause is necessary because the European Court of Justice declared the previous treaty invalid because of concerns about privacy.

American companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft are allowed to process data from European users because the European Commission has designated the US as a country where it is sufficiently guaranteed that data is adequately protected. The EU did so in decision 2000/520/EC of 2000, with reference to the Safe Harbor or Safe Harbor principles.

The reason that the European Court of Justice declared the treaty invalid is because the powers of US government services in the fields of national security, the public interest and investigation are above those of the Safe Harbor principles.