Main Innovation and Challenges of the New Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs)

This presentation analyzed the impact and associated legal challenges of international data transfers after the recent developments which unfolded as a consequence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decision in Case C-311/18 Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland Limited, Maximillian Schrems (Schrems II). The Schrems II judgement invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework and upheld the use of standard contractual clauses (SCCs) with the caveat that organizations should perform a case-by-case assessment on the application of the SCCs and implement ‘supplementary measures’ to compensate for the lack of data protection in the third country, where necessary. On June 4th, 2021 the Commission issued new SCCs which replaced the three sets of SCCs that were adopted under the previous Data Protection Directive 95/46. These new developments, in particular the new SCCs, have raised the bar high for data protection in international data transfers. In this presentation, we discussed how to easily navigate the contours of this new legal landscape and proposed some practical solutions.