Demise of the EU–US Safe Harbor: What Needs to be Done?

On October 6, 2015, the European Court of Justice invalidated the agreement between the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Union that allowed personal information of EU citizens to flow to the United States. About 4,500 companies, including some brand-name European companies, relied on this now-invalid Safe Harbor agreement to operate across the Atlantic. With this decision, transatlantic data transfers are under a legal cloud, with potentially substantial effects on trade and business operations. The European Court based its decision on the massive NSA surveillance of European citizens that provided inadequate protection for the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed by European law.

Join Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture & Technology (CCT) program for a timely and important conversation. The panel from industry, the European Union, civil society, and the law and policy academy will explore the EU court’s decision and what needs to be done to preserve both the transatlantic flow of data and the privacy rights of European citizens.

Panelists:

Andrea Glorioso, Counselor for the Digital Economy, Delegation of the European Union to the USA
Nuala O’Connor, President & CEO, Center for Democracy & Technology
Carolyn Nguyen, Director of Technology Policy, Microsoft
Meg Jones, Communication, Culture & Technology Program, Georgetown University
Moderator: Mark MacCarthy, Communication, Culture & Technology Program, Georgetown University

For more information, contact [email protected].