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'Umbrella agreement’ reached on data protection

10 Sep 2015

After four years of negotiations AmCham EU welcomes the signing, by EU and US officials, of an ‘umbrella agreement’ on data protection. The agreement will cover personal data that is transferred between US and EU law enforcement agencies and is seen as an important step towards strengthening the fundamental right to privacy in Europe and rebuilding trust in EU-US data flows, according to Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová.

While EU and US officials finalised the long-awaited agreement on Tuesday 8 September, in order for it to take effect Congress will first have to pass a bill granting European citizens the right to sue in US courts if they be­lieve American au­thor­it­ies have mis­used their per­son­al data. To remedy this, the Judicial Redress Act was introduced by Rep. Jim Sensen­bren­ner earlier this year.

Commissioner Jour­ová called on Con­gress to ad­opt the bill, “which would en­able us to fi­nally sign and con­clude the um­brella agree­ment.”