

Lists of customers on Dropbox, or personnel files at OneDrive: Those fall under personal data that is affected by yesterday’s verdict. For companies, the consequences are more severe. They can decide where to store their data and they agree to the terms of use of the providers. What does that mean for Dropbox, or OneDrive users?įor private users, this will not have significant consequences. The exchange of data between US companies and authorities, such as the NSA, violate the rights of customers, whose data is being handled. The agreement would not protect personal data of European customers from authorities accessing the data. The judges ruled the safe harbor agreement as invalid. The European Court of Justice announced a decision in the case of Austrian Max Schrems against the Irish Data Protection Authority.

Since yesterday, safe harbor may be a chapter in history. Safe Harbor – not enough for the European Court of Justice

As of today, more than 4.000 US companies are on the safe harbor list – among them global players, such as Dropbox, Google, or Microsoft. US companies have to agree to special data privacy regulations, to become a “Safe Harbor” for European data. Requirements are, though, that the EU Commission acknowledges the privacy policies in the third country as appropriate. The European Commission offered companies a chance to store personal data legally in the US. The agreement from over 15 years ago made it possible to store personal data on American servers, although it is actually prohibited under the EU data protection directive. Since yesterday the term safe harbor gained new relevance. Safe Harbor? Currently under Construction
