EU and US Reach Agreement in Principle on Successor to ‘Safe Harbor’ for Trans-Atlantic Data Transfers

The European Commission announced an agreement in principle on a new framework for data transfers to replace the “Safe Harbor” arrangement that had governed data flows between the United States and Europe for the past 15 years. The proposed framework — now called the "EU-US Privacy Shield" (which in the run-up to adoption also had been referred to as "Safe Harbor 2.0") — is intended to address the concerns that prompted the Safe Harbor’s invalidation by the European Union’s highest court in October of last year. As of now, the negotiators have reached agreement only on a broad outline of the Privacy Shield's terms, and the parties have turned to working out the details. Assuming it is approved, the new framework would go into effect sometime in April of this year.

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