The Commission, after years of negotiations, reached a provisional agreement with US officials on an EU-US data protection 'umbrella agreement' last autumn. It has now recommended that the Council of Ministers, which is made up of representatives from the national governments of the 28 countries that make up the EU, sign the deal.
"The umbrella agreement will provide high data protection standard when justice and police authorities exchange personal data, such as criminal records, names or addresses across the Atlantic to fight crime and terrorism," EU justice commissioner Vera Jourová said. "The Judicial Redress Act ensures that all EU citizens have the right to enforce data protection rights in US courts, as US citizens already enjoy this right in Europe. This is a historic achievement to rebuild trust in transatlantic data flows and to strengthen the fundamental right to privacy."
The Commission said that US president Barack Obama's signing of the Judical Redress Act in February "opened the way" for the signature of the broader umbrella agreement.
The agreement does not of itself provide a lawful authority for the transfer of the data to the US from the EU but would instead apply a range of privacy protections to data that is exchanged between law enforcement agencies in the EU and US.
The Commission said: "The agreement covers all personal data exchanged between the EU and the US for the purpose of prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of criminal offences, including terrorism. It will provide safeguards and guarantees of lawfulness for data transfers, and provide EU citizens the same judicial redress rights as US citizens in case of privacy breaches."
The Council of Ministers needs the consent of MEPs before the new umbrella agreement can be concluded.
The data protection umbrella agreement is separate from the EU-US Privacy Shield that has been proposed to facilitate the transfer of personal data from the EU to the US by businesses.