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The European Court decided that the online data of Europeon people may not be transferred to servers of the United States because of privacy reasons. They feel like our privacy is not save enough in the United States. Digital Europe warns it will hurt the European economy, and it will also be negative for European organisations and their customers.

The Austrian student Max Schrems asked the Irish privacy watchdog to investigate the data protection in the United States, but the Irish watchdog refused to launch an investigation because of the Safe-Harbor determination. Max Schrems quoted the revelations of Edward Snowden. NSA documents from Snowden showed that the inquiry service collect private data on a large scale from internet users. According to Schrems this was the reason that European data should not be transferred to the United States.

4400 organisations use nowadays the Save-Harbor determination for data exchange between Europe and the United States. But now, the European Court made a judgement against the determination because of privacy reasons. Europe and the United States have to negotiate about a new agreement.

The question is, is the jugdement good or not? There is a change that we can’t use Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft anymore like the way we used to it. And what are the consequences for organisations like Facebook? How should they deal with it?

-          Margo van Gils