Name: EU Court Again Rules That NSA Spying Makes U.S. Companies Inadequate for Privacy
Brand: eff.org
SKU: eff-org-195
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

EU Court Again Rules That NSA Spying Makes U.S. Companies Inadequate for Privacy

preview

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe European Union’s highest court today —once again—that the US government’s mass surveillance programs are incompatible with the privacy rights of EU citizens. The judgment was made in the latest case involving Austrian privacy advocate and EFF Pioneer Award winner . It invalidated the “Privacy Shield,” the data protection deal that secured the transatlantic data flow, and narrowed the ability of companies to transfer data using individual agreements (, or SCCs).Despite the many “we are disappointed” statements by the EU Commission, U.S. , and , it should come as no surprise, since it follows .Back then, the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) noted that European citizens had no real recourse in US law if their data was swept up in the U.S. governments’ surveillance schemes. Such a violation of their basic privacy rights meant that U.S. companies could not provide an “adequate level of [data] protection,” as required by EU law and promised by the EU/U.S. “Privacy Safe Harbor” self-regulation regime. Accordingly, the Safe Harbor was deemed inadequate, and data transfers by companies between the EU and the U.S. were forbidden.Since that original decision, multinational companies, the U.S. government, and the European Commission sought to paper over the giant gaps between U.S. spying practices and the EU’s fundamental values. The U.S. government made clear that it did not intend to change its surveillance practices, nor push for legislative fixes in Congress. All parties instead agreed to merely fiddle around the edges of transatlantic data practices, reinventing the previous Safe Harbor agreement, which weakly governed corporate handling of EU citizen’s personal data, under a new name: the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield.EFF, along with the rest of civil society on both sides of the Atlantic, . The Court cited government programs like PRISM and Upstream as its primary reason for ending data flows between Europe and the United States, not the (admittedly woeful) privacy practices of the companies themselves. That meant that it was entirely in the government and U.S. Congress’ hands to decide whether U.S. tech companies are allowed to handle European personal data. The message to the U.S. government is simple: Fix U.S. mass surveillance, or undermine one of the United States’ major industries.Five years after the original iceberg of Schrems 1, Schrems 2 has pushed the Titanic fully beneath the waves. The new judgment explicitly calls out the weaknesses of U.S. law in protecting non-U.S. persons from arbitrary surveillance, highlighting that:Section 702 of the FISA does not indicate any limitations on the power it confers to implement surveillance programmes for the purposes of foreign intelligence or the existence of guarantees for non-US persons potentially targeted by those programmes.and... neither Section 702 of the FISA, nor E.O. 12333, read in conjunction with PPD‑28, correlates to the minimum safeguards resulting, under EU law, from the principle of proportionality, with the consequence that the surveillance programmes based on those provisions cannot be regarded as limited to what is strictly necessary.The CJEU could not be more blunt in its pronouncements: but it remains unclear how the various actors that could fix this problem will react. Will EU data protection authorities step up their enforcement activities and invalidate SCCs that authorize data flows to the U.S. for failing to protect EU citizens from U.S. mass surveillance programs? And if U.S. corporations cannot confidently rely on either SCCs or the defunct Privacy Shield, will they lobby harder for real U.S. legislative change to protect the privacy rights of Europeans in the U.S.—or just find another temporary stopgap to force yet another CJEU decision? And will the European Commission move from defending the status quo and current corporate practices, to truly acting on behalf of its citizens?Whatever the initial reaction by EU regulators, companies and the Commission, the real solution lies, as it always has, with the United States Congress. Today's decision is yet another significant indicator that the U.S. government's foreign intelligence surveillance practices need a massive overhaul. Congress half-heartedly began the process of improving some parts of FISA earlier this year—a process which now appears to have been abandoned. But this decision shows, yet again, that the U.S. needs much broader, privacy-protective reform, and that Congress’ inaction makes us all less safe, wherever we are.Share ItIn a new round of talks this week to formulate a , EFF is calling for strictly limiting the scope of the convention’s international cooperation provisions and safeguards to ensure that states respect human rights when responding to legal assistance requests.EFF is among a group of ...The scourge of stalkerware—malicious apps used by perpetrators of domestic violence to secretly spy on their victims—is not going unchallenged or unaddressed. are increasingly adding stalkerware to the list of apps their products detect on devices; victim help people figure out whether their devices are...Even in the face of strong public protest over a set of proposed revisions to criminal laws that infringe Indonesians’ free expression rights, the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights last month that threatens to further...EFF, Article 19, Fundación Karisma, and Privacy International, represented by Berkeley Law’s , urged the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule that Colombia’s existing legal framework regulating intelligence activities, and the unlawful and arbitrary surveillance of members of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective...The White House announced today that sixty one countries the Declaration for the Future of the Internet. The high-level vision and principles expressed in the Declaration—to have a single, global network that is truly open, fosters competition, respects privacy and inclusion, and protects human rights and fundamental...Update: On 16 June, following the approval by the Permanent Representatives Committee, the EU Parliament’s Internal Market Committee overwhelmingly the deal on the EU’s Digital Services Act. EFF helped to ensure that the final language steered clear of intrusive filter obligations. The DSA is expected to...First came tracking devices like Tiles and AirTags, marketed as clever, button-sized Bluetooth-enabled gizmos that can find your lost backpack. Then, after bad actors started using the devices to stalk or follow people, came scanning apps to help victims find out whether those same gizmos were tracking them.Such is the...Last week, Russian citizens began receiving instructions to either download a government-approved web browser, according to instructions issued by their government’s Ministry of Digital Development and Communications. On the one hand, these changes may be necessary for Russians to access...Imagine being detained by armed agents whenever you returned from traveling outside the country. That’s what life became like for Academy Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras, who was placed on a terrorist watch-list after she made a documentary critical of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Poitras was detained close...December 22, 2021H.E. Ms Faouzia Boumaiza MebarkiChairpersonAd Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Criminal PurposesYour Excellency,We, the undersigned organizations and academics, work to protect and advance human rights, online and offline. Efforts to address cybercrime are of concern...Share It

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe European Union’s highest court today —once again—that the US government’s mass surveillance programs are incompatible with the privacy rights of EU citizens. The judgment was made in the latest case involving Austrian privacy advocate and EFF Pioneer Award winner . It invalidated the “Privacy Shield,” the data protection deal that secured the transatlantic data flow, and narrowed the ability of companies to transfer data using individual agreements (, or SCCs).Despite the many “we are disappointed” statements...

public

Danny O&#039

Danny O&#039;Brien

We're the Electronic Frontier Foundation. We defend your civil liberties in a digital world.

EU Court Again Rules That NSA Spying Makes U.S. Companies Inadequate for Privacy

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS