Decision (EU) 2016/920 on the signing of the agreement between the United States and the European Union on the protection of personal data in the context of the prevention, research, detection and prosecution of criminal offences. Since one of the potential guarantee mechanisms, namely the assessment of the adequacy of the Commission`s `umbrella` adequacy, is no longer eligible, several alternative instruments can be used to ensure a compliant data transmission before negotiations between the EU and the US continue on a new system of intervention in line with the standards set by the ECJ. A final ECJ decision was published on 16 July 2020 in Schrems II. [25] [26] The EU-US data protection shield for data exchange was rejected by the European Court of Justice on the grounds that it did not provide adequate protection for EU citizens from state espionage. [4] The European Data Protection Committee (EDPD), an EU organisation whose decisions are binding on national data protection authorities, said that “transfers on the basis of this legal framework are illegal.” [27] “Restrictions on the protection of personal data arising from U.S. national law… are not described in a way that meets the requirements. “The requirements for national security, public interest and prosecution in the United States are a priority, which allows for an encroachment on the fundamental rights of people whose data is transferred,” he said. The Court of Justice clarified that the validity of the European Commission`s 2010/87/EC decision was not called into question by the fact that the standard data protection clauses contained in it were contractual in nature and were therefore not legally binding on the authorities of the third country to which the data was transmitted. According to the ECJ, the 2010/87/EC decision put in place effective mechanisms which, on 8 September 2015, informed European and US officials that they had reached a data protection agreement in the context of transatlantic criminal investigations.
The EUROPEAN Commissioner for Justice said: “Once this agreement is in force, it will guarantee a high level of protection for all personal data if it is transferred between law enforcement agencies across the Atlantic.” Despite the announcements, neither U.S. officials nor their European counterparts have made the text of the agreement public. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has reached an important agreement on the transfer of data from EU citizens to the United States. The European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom are on the verge of managing data transfers, which each year support billions of euros in trade.