Dive Brief:

• The EU wants U.S. businesses to inform them when U.S. intelligence agencies request access to data Europeans.
• The reporting is one of the conditions EU negotiators are imposing for the new Safe Harbor agreement.
• On October 6, the highest EU court ruled the Safe Harbour agreement invalid. The agreement had allowed thousands of companies to transfer data easily from Europe to the United States. The court said Safe Harbour does not sufficiently protect EU citizens' personal data.

Dive Insight:

The court's decision last month underscored a number of ways U.S. legislation does not provide the equivalent level of privacy protection required under EU law for data transfers.

“We would like to see a continuation of the reforms of the American legislation, which will bring necessary safeguards and barriers to mass surveillance, which was commented by the court as the main problem in Safe Harbor," said European Commissioner for Justice Vĕra Jourová.

EU officials now want to require that the U.S. report intelligence agencies' requests to access Europeans' personal information. The U.S. wants it to remain voluntary.

"We require that the companies will do it on a mandatory basis, while the American side preferred voluntary basis and this is where we are now," said Jourová.