- eco Association and i2Coalition promote an exchange on transatlantic data protection
- Discussion series between Internet industry and politics successfully concluded on 22 May in Washington D.C.
- European election: Data protection as example of successful European digital policy
Representatives of the Internet industry from Europe and the USA, and US politicians, paved the way for better transatlantic data protection on 22 May. As the participants unanimously agreed, this will play an increasingly important role for the industry on both sides of the Atlantic. The Privacy Shield therefore needs to be strengthened. eco – Association of the Internet Industry and its US American partner association, the i2Coalition, organized the event. The roundtable discussions in Washington D.C. were the third, and for now the last, in an event series which began on 7 February in Brussels and continued on 12 February in Berlin.
Data protection for digital trade relations across the Atlantic
In the focus of the discussion was the future of the EU-US-Privacy Shield, introduced in 2016. This data protection agreement between the EU and the USA forms an important legal ground for the transfer of personal data to companies with their headquarters in the USA. “The Privacy Shield has an increasingly important function in light of the digital transformation of the economy in Europe, and is therefore also a prerequisite for the success of digitalization,” says Oliver Süme, Chair of eco – Association of the Internet Industry. The participants discussed the future of transatlantic data exchange in particular against the backdrop of the ongoing development of US data protection law, which has been set in motion by the high requirements of the European General Data Protection Regulation.
Creating framework conditions for a stronger EU-US-Privacy Shield
“With the transatlantic roundtable discussions, we have succeeded in encouraging the exchange between political leaders and companies on both sides of the Atlantic,” says Süme. In the USA, a lot is happening in the area of data protection. A range of legislative initiatives have been started there with the aim of strengthening the level of data protection as a whole. “We’re on the right path. To take this further, we would like to continue the data protection dialogue in the future with events in Europe and the USA,” Süme concluded.
A video recording of the Transatlantic Dialogue is available online at: https://livestream.com/internetsociety2/privacyshield
eco’s digital policy core demands for the European election are available online at: https://international.eco.de/euagenda/
