Czech Industry Coalition on Data Protection is a common platform for issues related to ICT and internet economy, connecting individuals, associations (ICT Unie, Czech ICT Alliance, SPIR), business assocations and corporations. Their position on the recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union related to Safe Harbor follows:

Some ICT customers using cloud services in the Czech Republic (enterprices, SME´s or consumers) have questions about the impact of the ruling issued by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) about the EU – US Safe Harbour Framework. In particular those customers may ask if this means that they will no longer be able to transfer their customer data from the European Union to the United States. This question was raised also during the roundtable meeting of industry representatives with Andrus Ansip, an Estonian politician currently serving as the Vice President for the Digital Single Market on the European Commission at the Hrzansky Palace in Prague on Monday, October 12th, 2015.

For all enterprise cloud customers, we believe the clear answer is that yes, they can continue to transfer data by relying on additional steps and legal safeguards some cloud providers already put in place. This includes additional and stringent privacy protections and some companies already rely on compliance with the EU Model Clauses, which enable customers to move data between the EU and other places – including the United States – even in the absence of the Safe Harbour. Both the ruling and comments by the European Commission recognized these types of steps.

Selected cloud services operated by the trustworthy cloud providers already comply with the EU Model Clauses and international standards (such as ISO 27 018) and hence are covered in this way. EU will have to finalize negotians with US on new principles, which will replace Safe Harbour soon in the future and will guarantee full compliance for all trustworthy cloud providers form EU and US.

Click also on other reactions to the ruling: Irish Data Protection Commissioner, Max Schrems, European Commission, European Parliament,BEUC, AmCham EU, Digital Europe, CBI, Dataprotectionreport.com, ITIF, The Economist, DW, Techcrunch.com, The Washington Post.

Read about the background of the issue. Also, read the EU Council common position on Data protection for police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and protection of personal data processed for purposes of law enforcement.

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