President Trump recently fired the three democrats on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). Since these firings bring the Board to a sub-quorum level, they have the potential to significantly disrupt transatlantic transfers of employee and other personal data from the EU to the US under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF).
The PCLOB is an independent board tasked with oversight of the US intelligence community. It is a bipartisan board consisting of five members, three of whom represent the president’s political party and two represent the opposing party. The PCLOB’s oversight role was a significant element in the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework (TADPF) negotiations, helping the US demonstrate its ability to provide an essentially equivalent level of data protection to data transferred from the EU. Without this key element, it is highly likely there will be challenges in the EU to the legality of the TADPF. If the European Court of Justice invalidates the TADPF or the EU Commission annuls it, organizations that certify to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework will be without a mechanism to facilitate transatlantic transfers of personal data to the US. This could potentially impact transfers from the UK and Switzerland as well.
Organizations that rely on their DPF certification for transatlantic data transfers should consider developing a contingency plan to prevent potential disruption to the transfer of essential personal data. Steps to prepare for this possibility include reviewing existing agreements to identify what essential personal data is subject to ongoing transfers and the purpose(s), determining whether EU Standard Contractual Clauses would be an appropriate alternative and, if so, conducting a transfer impact assessment to ensure the transferred data will be subject to reasonable and appropriate safeguards.