The EU-U.S. Safe Harbor Agreement on Personal Data Privacy: In Brief. Martin A. Weiss, Specialist in International Trade and Finance Kristin Archick Specialist in European Affairs. October 29, 2015.

“On October 6, 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a judgment that invalidates the Safe Harbor Agreement between the United States and the 28-member European Union (EU). Safe Harbor is a 15-year-old accord, under which personal data could legally be transferred between EU member countries and the United States. The negotiation of Safe Harbor was largely driven by the EU’s 1995 Data Protection Directive (DPD) and European concerns that the U.S. approach to data privacy did not guarantee a sufficient level of protection for European citizens’ personal data. The Safe Harbor Agreement applies to a wide range of businesses and organizations that collect and hold personal data. When the parties concluded the Safe Harbor Agreement in 2000, however, the Inter net was still in its infancy, and the range of public and private actors engaged in the mass processing of personal data, including across borders, was much more limited than today.”