Data protection action ‘of utmost importance to US’

The US government has said the Irish data protection commissioner’s major action querying the validity of the main channels being used for EU-US data transfers is “of the utmost importance to the US and to the broader public”.

An unprecedented application by the US to join the High Court action will be heard on July 7, alongside similar applications by major Irish, European and US business and civil liberties organisations.

Commissioner Helen Dixon initiated the case after her draft finding last month that Austrian student Max Schrems had raised “well-founded objections” to the validity of EU-US data transfer channels, or ‘standard contractual clauses’.