No news is not good news this time. The January 31 deadline for getting a new Safe Harbor Agreement in place came and went last weekend. Commissioner Jourova, who is leading the Safe Harbor 2.0 negotiations for the EU, reported on the negotiation’s status last evening to LIBE, the European Parliament committee that oversees privacy matters. While reporting that substantial progress has been made, Jourova noted that the details of the redress mechanisms for EU persons are still under negotiation, along with a few other issues relating to the overall robustness of the new framework.  

The Article 29 Working Party (representing the 28 member states’ data protection authorities) meets today and tomorrow to discuss the post-Schrems legal landscape. The Working Party has said that they will also release the results of their consideration of whether the Schrems decision vitiates the model clauses and binding corporate rules. The model clauses and BCRs are particularly vital data transfer mechanisms, given the limited options available for transfers outside of the European Economic Area, so the Working Party’s opinions will be an extremely important indicator for the the uncertain future of EU to US data flows.