Today, after over two years of detailed negotiations, President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order on Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities outlining steps the U.S. will take to implement its commitments under the European Union-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, originally announced by President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in March of 2022 (as previously discussed here).
The Order follows the Court of Justice European Union’s 2020 judgment in Schrems II (previously discussed here), which invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield as a valid data transfer framework under the European General Data Protection Regulation, requiring thousands of companies to resort to standard contractual clauses or binding corporate rules as virtually their only means to freely transfer data across the Atlantic. It is hoped that the steps proposed by the Order will alleviate the concerns raised by the CJEU regarding transfers of personal data to the U.S., and will lead to a new data transfer mechanism that can be used to legitimise transfers of personal data from the EU to the U.S.
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