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11/03/2017

Sources Say U.S. Reassured EU On Privacy Directive




Sources Say U.S. Reassured EU On Privacy Directive
During a meeting with the EU digital chief, no changes to a pact enabling billions of dollars of data flows were indicated by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross who gave no indication of any plans to change U.S. privacy protections on the pact.
 
The previous government at the helm of the U.S. had put in place privacy protections that were crucial to a transatlantic pact allowing companies to store EU citizens' data on U.S. servers and in recent times, concerns were stoked by the actions of the U.S. President Trump's administration after it made indications in Brussels that it may undo some of the privacy protections that  were already in place.
 
Being the first European to meet the new Commerce Secretary since he took office was the EU Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip who met Ross in Washington on Thursday.
 
News agency Reuters reported quoting a source briefed on the meeting said on Friday that the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield - the data transfer pact, was rendered support for the crucial pillars of the pact by Ross.
 
No indications of any plans to change Obama's privacy directive issued in January 2014 were made available from Ross, the source said.
 
Ross and him had agreed "on the need for robust and predictable #PrivacyShield for safe and secure U.S.-EU data flows", Ansip said on Twitter.
 
The U.S. Department of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment from the media.
 
Protection to the issue over how data transferred by companies to the United States would be protected in line with tough EU data protection was discussed more than two years of difficult negotiations and where negotiations were difficult and ultimately the Privacy Shield was agreed upon in 2016. Obama's Presidential Policy Directive 28 (PPD28) was issued after revelations of mass U.S. spying in 2013 and gave foreign citizens some privacy protections from U.S. surveillance activities.
 
In order to allow U.S. spies unfettered access to EU citizens' data, the EU's top court struck down Privacy Shield's predecessor in 2015.
 
When consumer data is shared to complete credit card, travel or e-commerce transactions, or to target advertising based on customer preferences, cross-border data transfers are used in many industries for sharing employee information.
 
(Source:www.reuters.com) 

Christopher J. Mitchell

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