Pompeo ‘deeply disappointed’ in EU court decision to get rid of transatlantic data transfer deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the United States was “deeply disappointed” in a ruling Thursday by Europe’s highest court that a transatlantic data transfer agreement is not valid due to concerns about US surveillance.

Pompeo said in a statement that the United States would review the consequences and implications of the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union that could affect thousands of companies that depend on the agreement.

“We are deeply disappointed that the Court of Justice of the European Union … has invalidated the framework of the EU-US Privacy Shield,” Pompeo said.

“The United States will continue to work closely with the EU to find a mechanism that allows unimpeded commercial transfer of essential data from the EU to the United States,” he added.

The ruling effectively ends with the privileged access that companies in the United States had to Europe’s personal data and places the country in a similar situation to other nations outside the bloc, meaning that data transfers are likely to face to closer scrutiny.

The so-called Privacy Shield was created in 2016 by Washington and Brussels to protect personal data when it is sent to the United States for commercial use after a previous agreement known as Safe Harbor was declared invalid in 2015.

More than 5,000 companies have signed up to it, but the Privacy Shield was challenged in a long-running dispute between Facebook and Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who has campaigned on the risk that US intelligence agencies. Access data on Europeans.