Facing an intense scrutiny over users’ data privacy and security, Google has said that a new data transfer framework between the US and the EU will not only help businesses to participate in the global digital economy but also assure continued protection of people’s right to privacy.
Last week, Austria’s data protection authority ruled that a local web publisher’s implementation of Google Analytics did not provide an adequate level of protection, on the grounds that US national security agencies have a theoretical ability to access user data.
According to Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer at Google and Alphabet, the company has offered Analytics-related services to global businesses for more than 15 years and, in all that time. has never once received the type of demand the DPA speculated about.
“If you rely on an open, global internet, you’ll want the European Union and the US government to agree soon on a new data framework to keep the services you use up and running,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
People increasingly rely on data flows for everything from online shopping, travel, and shipping, to office collaboration, customer management, and security operations.
Over the next decade, these services will contribute hundreds of billion euros to Europe’s economy alone.
“But those data flows, that convenience, and those economic benefits are more and more at risk,” Walker said.
According to Google, the European Court of Justice’s July 2020 ruling did not impose an inflexible standard under which the mere possibility of exposure of data to another government required stopping the global movement of data.
“A new framework will bolster the transatlantic relationship, ensure the stability of transatlantic commerce and avoid potentially serious disruptions of supply chains and transatlantic trade,” the tech giant emphasised.
