European data protection supervisor Peter Hustinx was speaking at a data protection conference in Washington this week.
said Hustinx praised the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for enforcing the EU-US Safe Harbor Agreement, whereby companies can legally transfer data from the EU to US as long as a self-certifying process is followed.
Europolitics reports that Hustinx noted the FTC's first-ever action against companies not complying with the Safe Harbor agreement, in this case against six companies that claimed they were self-certified, but were not.
But asked about the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s approach, Hustinx said there had been "no major initiative yet".
Hustinx voiced concern when asked a question about efforts by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose brief also includes protecting the US from terrorist attacks, to force individual EU member states to sign data sharing accords with the DHS as a precondition to them being on the US Visa Waiver Programme.
There has been "a prolongation of the old approach of getting as much as possible," Hustinx said. This put a question mark over whether a future EU-US law enforcement data sharing agreement would be the central legal framework or "just a back-up if something else does not work," Hustinx said.
Last week saw a tightening of EU data protection in the online world. The passing of , which member states must implement within 18 months, means consumers will have to be informed when their personal details are exposed in a data breach.
This week a former employee of T-Mobile was alleged to be responsible for .
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
