Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-01-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the consequences that would follow if negotiations between the EU and the USA on the renewal of the Safe Harbour agreement on data transfers fail.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

I remain hopeful that the EU and US will come to an agreement on a replacement for safe harbor. If not, data transfers to the US will need to be based on an alternative method of transfer.

I visited Washington at the beginning of January where I discussed what this Government could do to aid discussions between the Commission and US. Since this visit, I hosted a roundtable together with the Information Commissioner’s Office where we provided business and other interested organisations with an update on the discussions.

The Government continues to urge both sides in these negotiations to reach a swift conclusion. Commissioner Jourova recently said that she believed an agreement was possible and the Committee comprising the data protection authorities of all 28 member states will meet to review the position on 2 February.

In the meantime the Commission issued a communication on 6 November 2015 regarding international transfers. This is based on guidance from the Article 29 Working Party which is the grouping of the European data protection authorities. The Information Commissioner’s Office has also issued guidance on the use of alternative methods of data transfer between the EU and US.