THE PRIVACYPERFECT BLOG

16 July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield in the Schrems II case, making most EU-US data transfers illegal overnight. The Court has also provided clarification on some extensive hurdles for using its most obvious alternative, Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC). Organizations have to:

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) has recently approved the “Data Pro Code”,  the first code of conduct approved by the Dutch DPA under the GDPR.  The code was drafted by industry trade association of the Dutch digital sector, NLdigital, composed of 600 members, including SMEs and tech giants, and is intended to help companies in the ICT sector to comply with the obligations laid down in the EU privacy regulation.

In the ground-breaking judgement of DPC v Facebook Ireland & Schrems, also known as Schrems 2.0,  the Court of Justice of the EU declared the European Commission's EU-US Privacy Shield Decision invalid, making the majority of EU-US data transfers in violation of EU Privacy law. The reason? US mass surveillance making the level of protection of personal data to the US not “adequate” to that in the EU. While the CJEU upheld the use of Standard Contractual Clauses ('SCCs'), Privacy Shields most obvious alternative, it clarified some extensive considerations that organisations and authorities should assess when they use these model clauses.

...And now

Since then, a lot has happened, but uncertainty remains. Now that the dust has settled somewhat, this blog post aims to clear up some of the uncertainties through an overview of relevant events.