A brief introduction to the Agreement between the USA and the European Union on the Protection of Personal Information Relating to the Prevention, Investigation, Detection, and Prosecution of Criminal Offences

摘要

Some criticisms have been raised against the Umbrella Agreement, disputing not only its actual compliance with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; but questioning also its effective capability to provide a protection to the EU citizens' personal data. In particular, in this latter respect, it has been argued that the 'redress is available only in limited circumstance and for narrow classes of data'; and that there are also some 'practical barriers to individuals exercising their rights', related both to the secretive nature of intelligence services and to the costs required to enforce these rights. Despite these pertinent criticisms, however, the Umbrella Agreement can be considered a political and legal milestone for at least two reasons. First, it represents the legal implementation, strongly promoted by the Commission, of one of the six actions proposed in 2013 to rebuild trust between the EU and the US after Edward Snowden's revelations. Second, it should be noted that the US have agreed to act legislatively in order to give as much as effectiveness as possible to article 19 of the Umbrella Agreement: this is an important evolution of the approach followed by the US in 2000, at the time of the adoption of the Safe Harbor framework, where the US seemed reluctant to take legislative action.