EU starts discussions with APEC on finding a way to link their approaches to international transfers

The EU Art. 29 Data Protection Working Party announced at the end of March that there had been discussions in Jakarta, Indonesia, at the end of January and the beginning of March to find a common approach between the EU’s Binding Corporate Rules and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC’s) Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR). The latter is a system for the protection of personal data throughout the Asia-Pacific. Like the BCR system, the CBPR system is designed to ensure that a company’s privacy policies meet established standards for the protection of personal information.

The EU was represented by CNIL (France), the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, the European Data Protection Supervisor and the European Commission. The APEC member Economies participating including Canada, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States.

Following this meeting, Jacob Kohnstamm, the Chair of the WP29, declared that “This is a great progress in strengthening international cooperation on data protection and in developing global solutions for organizations operating both in the EU and the APEC region.” Discussions are due to continue during this year.

Jacob Kohnstamm, Peter Schaar, Germany’s Federal DP Commissioner, and Jennifer Stoddart, Canadian Privacy Commissioner, will all be speaking at Privacy Laws & Business’ 26th Annual International Conference 1-3 July at Queens’ College, Cambridge. The conference programme is published today.