Dive Brief:
- Europe’s highest court has invalidated the “safe harbor” agreement allowing the free exchange of digital information between the United States and the European Union.
- The European Court of Justice said that information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that American intelligence agencies’ access to personal data could infringe upon European citizens’ privacy rights.
- Tech companies including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft downplayed the decision’s impact, conducting business as usual under existing treaties.
Dive Insight:
Looking for data on purchase patterns to target consumers living in the European Union? Look fast—the EU’s highest court has struck down a “safe harbor” agreement allowing the free transfer of information collected on the web between the EU and U.S. The ruling could severely limit marketers’ access to consumer data culled from web searches, online shopping and social media posts.
The decision resulted from a case brought by Austrian graduate student Max Schrems, who alleged that Facebook misused Europeans’ data while cooperating with the NSA’s Prism surveillance program—a charge Facebook has denied. The First Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, says that data transfer can continue under while the Commission works with regulators in each of the EU’s 28 member nations to apply the decision.
The agreement had been in place since 2000, mandating only that American companies treat personal data taken from the EU with the same protections as they enjoyed inside the region. The U.S. and EU have been negotiating a new agreement for nearly two years.