The arrival of the new EU Standard Contractual Clauses (“EU SCCs”) for international transfers in June 2021 was widely awaited to better understand the new requirements to assess the third-country laws for government access to data prior to using the SCCs following the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (“CJEU”) decision on Schrems II. As a value add, the EU SCCs were updated to reflect the GDPR requirements and also enabled organisations to cover a wider range of data flows than their previous versions due to the addition of ‘processor-to-processor’ and ‘processor-to-controller’ scenarios. Binding Corporate Rules (“BCRs”), another transfer tool available under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), have not yet been updated to reflect the same flexibility in reflecting the diversity of data flows and presently appear to be limited in use in comparison. It is expected that the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) will publish updated BCR requirements in 2022.
Continue Reading So you have got BCRs? You may still need to use the new EU SCCs

This week, it was officially announced that South Korea has become the fifth country to join the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s (APEC) Cross Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) system. This system was developed by APEC in 2011 to “build consumer, business and regulator trust in cross border flows of personal information” and thus facilitate e-commerce among APEC countries. The Ministry of Interior and the Korea Communications Commission stated on Monday that approval for joining the CBPR had been secured. In order for countries to opt in to the system, their legal systems and privacy protection must meet APEC’s standards.

APEC is an economic forum comprised of countries throughout Asia-Pacific. APEC’s importance should be noted: its 21 member economies comprise 54 per cent of the world’s GDP and 40 per cent of world trade. It exists to assist in trade through faster customs procedures and initiatives to synchronise regulatory systems across its member countries. The CBPR is a voluntary accountability-based system that facilitates the safe transfer of personal information across the APEC region.Continue Reading South Korea joins APEC’s Cross Border Privacy Rules system

On 6 July 2015, the Hungarian Parliament adopted several amendments (‘Amendments’) to Act CXII 2011 on the Right of Informational Self-Determination and the Freedom of Information (‘Data Protection Act’). The Amendments, currently only available in Hungarian, are designed to develop the data protection and right-to-access public information rules within Hungary, and fix problems the

In late May, the Article 29 Working Party published the letter it sent to the APEC Data Protection subgroup. The letter follows previous discussions and extends cooperation between the two international organisations on data transfer mechanisms, and sets out new plans to align the EU Binding Corporate Rules (‘BCR’) with the APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules (‘CBPR’) to make it easier for organisations to be granted approval under both regimes.

Three initiatives put forward at the previous meeting were adopted by the Art. 29 Working Party to ‘develop the practical tools that will help organisations implement both requirements from the BCR and CBPR systems’. Both processes currently take significant time and resources to achieve, so the continued relationship between the EU and APEC will benefit organisations certified, or seeking certification, to BCRs and CBPRs. Despite this cooperation, no uniform standard will be produced, and organisations will still need to go through each certification process separately.Continue Reading APEC and Article 29 Working Party cooperation helps facilitate growth of BCRs and CBPRs