Commission runs with third attempt at EU-US data deal

Individual whose legal challenges scrapped two prior deals says he will also challenge the third

The European Commission has decided to run with a third deal it has struck with the United States to ease data transfer for activities including research, despite warnings from lawmakers that the deal might be struck down by the bloc’s top court like two previous ones.

Transatlantic data transfer has been hampered since the most recent relevant court decision in 2020, following a similar ruling five years earlier. In the resultant absence of an overarching EU-US data-transfer framework, some organisations have resorted to signing complex individual transfer contracts to comply with the EU’s data regulation.