EU Gets Uncertainty From US on Future Data Protection Cooperation

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — In April, the European Parliament expressed concern over increasingly fragile data protection for EU citizens in United States.

"The main message is that we are here still and that we are still having our issues as Europeans with also, for example, data protection, cyber security issues we are raising here, and we see where the US under [US President Donald] Trump stands," Jan Philipp Albrecht said on Wednesday.

"We got mostly the feedback that most of the standards, for example, on privacy issue should stay, and that’s good, that on security should be cooperation. But, of course, also we got as a feedback quite a lot of uncertainty about where the US will head here and there."

EU lawmakers adopted a resolution calling on the European Commission to ensure adequate data protection for EU citizens in the United States under the EU-US Privacy Shield framework.

The resolution mentioned surveillance activities conducted in the past by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as well as new powers gained by the NSA in January. In its final days, former US President Barack Obama's administration relaxed restrictions on NSA sharing data with other agencies without warrants or court orders.

The Privacy Shield was established to ensure privacy protection and compliance with both US and EU laws when transferring data across the Atlantic.

The deal has been signed by more than 500 companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft.