This
article focuses on the “safe harbor” data pact that is currently in the process
of being reformed between the U.S. and the EU. This pact aims to mediate
concerns about U.S. intelligent services potentially attaining data from
Europeans’ whose information is not properly protected in the U.S. There is a
rising fear that many trans-Atlantic transactions will be hurt if this pact is
not updated, and if these safety concerns are not addressed soon enough.
The main
stressed point in this article is the increasing fear among Europeans about
their data being exposed in the U.S., and how their personal information is
being leaked to the national security services. According to the U.S., they
have provided enough information to make it clear that the Europeans’ data is
protected essentially the same way it is in Europe, however, the European Court
of Justice claim that their privacy rights are being violated through this pact
since their information is “susceptible to indiscriminate surveillance by the
U.S. government” (Drozdiak & Schechner). It is odd how the article seems to
stress this issue without explaining how the U.S. is using this data. It is
unclear as to why this personal information would be beneficial for
intelligence purposes, and why it is being gathered from Europeans outside of
the country. Secondly, Drozdiak and McKinnon discuss the ways in which the EU
has attempted to resolve this issue, including the use of model contracts, and
having companies appeal to national regulators in Europe (Drozdiak &
McKinnon). It seems as though this would take an immense amount of time and
effort to have all U.S. companies find and use European regulators for their data
transactions, when they could simply abide by higher privacy standards to
appease the EU. Lastly, the article determines that it is up to individual
companies to uphold the requirements set in place by the pact to ensure
protection of the data, and Apple and Microsoft claim to be “using the
stringent terms written into the individual contracts” (Drozdiak &
McKinnon). It is vital that this data pact is properly reformed because
important technology relations will crumble if not. If more and more companies
are not willing to build their own European facilities or go through
regulators, commerce transactions, as well as data transfer processes will be
disrupted between the EU and U.S., essentially hurting business all over the
world.
After reading this article, it is
not clear as to how this information is spreading to the U.S. intelligent
services, and for what reasons. It is important to understand this aspect of
the issue because then more viable options can be explored to make sure this
data is in fact properly protected, and does not continue to spread. The article
does not explain what companies are causing this uneasiness among Europeans, or
how their privacy is upheld under EU standards, which is important to understand
what areas the U.S. is failing in with their protection services.
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