Data Protection in the News - August 2020

Expert commentary from Tim Lennard with a roundup of recent data privacy stories
​from around the globe

July news is dominated by the European Court of Justice decision on 16 July in the Schrems II case, that effectively struck down the US Privacy Shield Framework as invalid.

The framework now joins its predeceased sibling, the Safe Harbor programme, both now labelled by the EU as not providing adequate protection to EU citizens. The July decision is based on the legal powers available to US intelligence services to gain access to data, and leaves over 5000 organizations registered with the program with the problem of figuring out how export personal data from to the US, while staying legal in the eyes of the EU.

The judgement has given some clues, but no definitive guidance, as to what might be the way forward in falling short of striking down the existing, but ageing, Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) and Binding Corporate Rules (BCR) as available options. The ruling casts a shadow over the likelihood of the UK receiving ‘adequacy’ status before exit from the EU in December this year. It is also delivered with a backdrop of EU strategy statements advocating the repatriation of EU citizens' data.

With similar noises from India, we are likely entering a period of data protectionism, where the voice of national economic interest is added to the competing interests of human rights, global corporates and intelligence services. Buckle up!

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