US businesses slowly embracing Privacy Shield agreement

The new program that replaces the Safe Harbor agreement is being picked up by US companies, but very, very slowly.

In the first two weeks since the US Department of Commerce started accepting applications for the Privacy Shield transatlantic data transfer program, just 40 companies have been certified.

Another 200 applications are currently being reviewed, so we can expect this number to increase, although it’s still far, far away from the 4,000 companies certified for the Safe Harbor agreement.

"The first joint annual review will therefore be a key moment for the robustness and efficiency of the Privacy Shield mechanism to be further assessed", the regulators say, according to Computer Weekly.

"When participating in the review, the national representatives of the WP29 will not only assess if the remaining issues have been solved, but also if the safeguards provided under the EU-US Privacy Shield are workable and effective".

The EU-US Privacy Shield was formed to replace the Safe Harbor agreement, which was declared invalid by the European Union Court of Justice.

It regulates how companies use data from its customers abroad, as well as when and how are they allowed to extract that data, or store it abroad.

This process will continue to run for the next year, after which the regulators will review the framework, and possibly bring changes.

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