EU-US data transfer pact approved by European Union governments

A commercial data transfer pact provisionally agreed by the EU executive and the United States in February received the green light from EU governments on Friday, sources said, paving the way for it to enter into force next week. European Union member state representatives voted in favour of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, which will underpin over $250 billion dollars of transatlantic trade in digital services by facilitating cross-border data transfers which are crucial to the international business.

The European Commission, the EU executive, will formally adopt the Privacy Shield on Tuesday. That will end months of legal limbo for companies such as Google, Facebook, and MasterCard after the EU’s top court struck down the previous data transfer framework on concerns about intrusive U.S. surveillance.

This development comes after the Safe Harbour framework that was invalidated by European Court. The framework allowed tech companies to move the user data between the two regions while the services worked without any interruption. Negotiations between US and EU officials were on since last year to replace the framework with an agreement that will not be invalidated by European courts. The negotiators reached a deal in February and now the governments in the European Union have finally approved the pact.

With inputs from Reuters