, Columnist
EU Fails to Build on Data Privacy Success
Europe and the U.S. paper over their disagreement on privacy.
Was it all for nothing?
Photographer: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Back in October, a stubborn Austrian law student got the top European court to invalidate the European Union's "safe harbor" agreement with the U.S., which allowed 4,700 American tech companies to transfer EU citizens' private data to the U.S. without any safeguards. Now bureaucrats in Brussels are essentially rendering the judgment meaningless.
As Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistle-blower who alerted the world to the dangers of indiscriminate U.S. electronic surveillance put it in a tweet, "EU capitulates totally on safe harbor. Interesting, given that they held all the cards."