Privacy Shield

Privacy Shield was a data protection agreement meant to secure the transfer of personal data from the EU and Switzerland to the US.

Privacy Shield was set to replace Safe Harbor, invalidated by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in October 2015. The updated agreement was intended to protect European residents’ rights effectively, ensure an appropriate security level for processing personal data, and enable seamless data and market exchange between the EU and the US.

However, on July 16, 2020, the CJEU invalidated the Privacy Shield in a decision known as the Schrems II ruling. The court stated that sending personal data from the EU to the US is unlawful if companies can’t guarantee it will be kept from US intelligence. As a result, Privacy Shield is no longer a valid legal basis for EU-US data transfers.

On July 10, 2023 European Commission adopted a new adequacy decision – the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, also known as Privacy Shield 2.0.

Check out our blog posts on Privacy Shield:

• Privacy Shield 2.0: What it is and how it will affect your business
• The invalidation of Privacy Shield and the status of EU-US data transfers
• The Story Behind Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield
• Is Google Analytics illegal in the EU?