EU Parliament adopts a Resolution on the Adequacy afforded by the EU-US Privacy Shield

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Adequacy of the Protection afforded by the EU-US Privacy Shield, on April 6. Several privacy-related concerns were identified, in particular that neither the Privacy Shield or the US Administration’s letters of assurance demonstrate the existence of effective judicial redress rights in cases where EU personal data was accessed by law enforcement agencies. A concern that the Privacy Shield is based on Presidential Policy Directive 28 (ppd-28), which can be repealed by the President without consent of the US Congress, is underlined. Its first annual review will take place in September 2017, and the EU Parliament calls on the EU Commission to: 1) review the necessity and proportionality of bulk collection programmes; 2) monitor compliance with the requirement that EU personal data be deleted when no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was originally collected, including by law enforcement agencies, and 3) ensure the Privacy Shield is amended in line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation, set to become enforceable in May 2018.