Essence summary:
“The European Court of Justice is the highest legal authority in the European Union, and its decision cannot be appealed.
At issue is the sort of personal data that people create when they post something on Facebook or other social media; when they do web searches on Google; or when they order products or buy movies from Amazon or Apple. Such data is valuable to companies, which use it in a broad range of ways, including tailoring advertisements to individuals and promoting products or services based on users’ online activities.
Efforts to block the movement of such data across national borders could not only impose technical complexities on technology companies but could also require those companies to rethink the ways they make money in some parts of Europe.
The United States government had lobbied aggressively in Brussels in recent months to keep the Safe Harbor agreement in place.
The data-transfer rules do not only apply solely to tech companies. They will affect any organization with international operations, such as when a company has employees in more than one region and needs to transfer payroll information or allow workers to manage their employee benefits online.
“This is extremely bad news for E.U.-U.S. trade,” said Richard Cumbley, a tech lawyer at Linklaters in London. “Thousands of U.S. businesses rely on the Safe Harbor as a means of moving information. Without Safe Harbor, they will be scrambling to put replacement measures in place.”
In its ruling, the court said that the Safe Harbor agreement was flawed because it allowed American government authorities to gain routine access to Europeans’ online information. Such access infringes on Europeans’ rights to privacy established under the region’s tough data protection rules, the court said.
“Legislation permitting the public authorities to have access on a generalized basis to the content of electronic communications must be regarded as compromising the essence of the fundamental right to respect for private life,” the European Court of Justice said in a statement on Tuesday.”
“In its ruling, the court said that the Safe Harbor agreement was flawed because it allowed American government authorities to gain routine access to Europeans’ online information. Such access infringes on Europeans’ rights to privacy established under the region’s tough data protection rules, the court said.”
Translation: We don’t trust the US with our data. Given the WikiLeaks and Snowden debacles as well as the Chinese hacking incidents....if I were a judge in that court I would strike the agreements as invalid as well!