Attorney Article
Wolters Kluwer Features Article by Mendez on Transatlantic Data Transfers
The Computer & Internet Lawyer
Joelys Gonzalez Mendez (Associate-Atlanta) authored “A New Era of Transatlantic Data Transfers? President Biden Signs Executive Order Considered First Major Step in EU-U.S. Data Transfers,” for the January 2023 edition (Volume 40 - Number 1) of Wolters Kluwer’s The Computer & Internet Lawyer. The article discusses how the 2020 judgment in Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook Ireland Ltd and Maximillian Schrems (Schrems II) invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield for non-compliance with protections required under the EU General Data Protection Regulation. As a result, businesses adopted standard contractual clauses to pass data through the transatlantic. President Biden’s October 2022 executive order reflects a new U.S. policy framework addressing concerns raised by the Court of Justice of the European Union. Joelys details the order’s new mandates on levels of surveillance permitted by U.S. intelligence agencies, its multi-layer approach to redress mechanisms for U.S. privacy violations, and advises that “the European Commission will review the new U.S. Data Privacy Framework and is expected to prepare a draft adequacy decision that will commence the adoption process…until then, companies should continue to use standard contractual clauses and other approved alternative data transfer mechanisms for the time being.”