February 1 is a date that all compliance practitioners in both the United States and in Europe need to circle. That is the deadline that the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission are under to reach a new deal regarding the transfer of data from EU countries to the United States. These negotiations are part of the continued fallout from the Schrems decision, which invalidates the safe harbor provision under which U.S. companies brought information on EU citizens from Europe to the United States.
As reported in the New York Times, the negotiators have been going at it “almost daily since October,” yet they are apparently no closer to reaching an agreement. As you might expect, the parties are still unable to reach an accommodation around how U.S. spy agencies monitor Europeans’ digital profiles. But even if an agreement is reached, it still will have to be reviewed and approved by EU-member countries’ privacy watchdogs. Moreover if no agreement is reached, there could be even more restrictions placed on data transfer from individual EU member-states, which have a much more robust tradition of data privacy and rights than in the United States
