Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Israel joins EU in spiking Safe Harbour

Silicon Valley is the world's privacy pariah

Menlo Park Road’s VCs at first sniffed at the consequences of the Schrems v Facebook case on Silicon Valley’s global ambitions, but they should seriously be looking at how their investments conduct business. The global Silicon Valley freeze-out continues to spread, with Israel’s data protection authority ILITA declaring transfers of personal data to the US as unsafe for its citizens.

Israel’s Protection of Privacy Law (PPL) states that a citizen’s personal data cannot be exported to a country which has a weaker level of protection than that guaranteed by Israel. While Israel is not an EU member, the 2001 law permitted its companies to self-certify if a country was considered “safe” using the US-EU’s Safe Harbour agreement. Safe Harbour was legal fudge the EU used to “guarantee” the safety of personal data being exported across borders and processed in the United States.

Earlier this month the European Court of Justice nullified the agreement, as it considered that the United States could no longer guarantee the protection of Europeans’ personal data.

In a translation provided by Omar Tene, Stanford law professor, researcher head at the trade association IAPP, ILITA writes that, “Seeing as the Safe Harbour arrangement is currently invalid under European law, and in the absence of an alternative valid arrangement or another formal decision of the European Union with respect to the transfer of data from Europe to destinations in the United States, database owners who are interested in transferring personal data from Israel to the United States are therefore required to assess whether they can legitimise the data transfers on one or other of the derogations set forth in the Regulations”.

It pokes a spoke in the global ambitions of Silicon Valley’s internet companies. Even if they build out European data centres to minimise transborder data traffic, some data will continue to be exported to the United States for processing. With Safe Harbour nullified, no US company can immunise itself against lawsuits by European citizens.

Israel has a thriving technology sector – Google-owned Waze is the perhaps the best known – and Silicon Valley has made significant investments there in recent years. ®

 

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like