EU-US Privacy Shield May Provide Guidance for Transatlantic Data Transfers

The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to invalidate Safe Harbor in October 2015 sent shockwaves throughout the international business community. Safe Harbor was a certification mechanism that allowed personal data to be transferred across the Atlantic while guaranteeing that the personal data would be subject to the same protections as under EU law. More than 4,000 US based companies used this transfer mechanism. When the CJEU invalidated Safe Harbor, multinational companies were left wondering how they could now validly transfer employee information to their US affiliates.