The US President has signed an Executive Order paving the way for a new adequacy decision allowing a lawful route for transfers of personal data to the US under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In this report, Gemserv’s international transfers specialist Paula Swales looks at the background to this decision, what organisations need to do now, and what we can expect to see next.
In the modern digital economy, barrier free flows of data between nations are critical for trade and international relations. This is evident in the case of data transfers between the EU and the US; more data flows between these two economic blocs than anywhere else and underpins the $7.1 trillion EU-US economic relationship.
Therefore, the decision of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) to strike down Privacy Shield back in 2020 caused a disturbance on both sides of the Atlantic. Privacy Shield was a mechanism that allowed companies to freely transfer data across the Atlantic, and with the end of these barrier-free transfers came uncertainty from companies of all sizes.