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Schrems II: No Privacy Shield for EU-US Data Transfers, but Don’t Put Your Eggs into Standard Contractual Clauses Either

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Image Credit: Capri23auto from Pixabay

On July 16th, 2020, privacy professionals scrambled after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its decision in Schrems II. The ruling invalidated the US-EU Privacy Shield agreement, which authorized transfers of data from the EU to the US for Privacy Shield-certified companies. Though the ruling on Privacy Shield was unexpected given that it was not directly at issue, such a decision is not without precedent or historical pattern. Privacy Shield itself was a replacement for the Safe Harbor framework that was invalidated in 2015 in Schrems I.

Now that the Privacy Shield framework has been invalidated, both data controllers and data processors are likely concerned about the next steps to take to ensure that any data transfers integral to its operations can continue. Although the U.S. Department of Commerce has indicated that it will continue processing Privacy Shield certifications, affected companies such as U.S. data importers and EU data exporters should quickly explore and adopt other transfer legitimizing mechanisms with their service providers and vendors in order to prevent any gaps in compliance.

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china data privacy law

China’s 2020 Cryptography Law in the Context of China’s Burgeoning Data Privacy and Security Regime

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[Originally published as a Feature Article: China’s 2020 Cryptography Law in the Context of China’s Burgeoning Data Privacy and Security Regime, by Carolyn K. Luong, in Orange County Lawyer Magazine, April 2020, Vol. 62 No.4, page 31.]

By Carolyn Luong

U.S.-China relations have been a trending topic throughout the past year due to several conflicts involving the alleged encroachment upon free speech principles and perceived threats to U.S. national security. The NBA and Activision-Blizzard, both U.S.-based organizations, fielded criticisms in October of 2019 for supposed political censorship motivated by the fear of losing Chinese customers. Furthermore, as the U.S. races to build out its 5G infrastructure, the U.S. government has explicitly restricted U.S. corporations from conducting business with Chinese technology manufacturer Huawei upon apprehension that Huawei equipment may contain backdoors to enable surveillance by the Chinese government.[1]

Dr. Christopher Ford, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation remarked in September that, “Firms such as Huawei, Tencent, ZTE, Alibaba, and Baidu have no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance—e.g., in the form of access to foreign technologies, access to foreign networks, useful information about foreign commercial counterparties . . . .”[2] These Chinese firms in response firmly deny any allegations of contemplated or actual instances of required cooperation with the Chinese government to compromise user information or equipment.

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