New FPF Study: More Than 250 European Companies are Participating in Key EU-US Data Transfer Mechanism

European Companies’ Participation in Privacy Shield Up Nearly 30% from the Past Year.

EU-US Privacy Shield Remains Essential to Leading European Companies.

From Major Employers such as Logitech and Siemens to Leading Technology Firms like Telefónica and SAP, European Companies Depend on the EU-US Agreement.

The Privacy Shield Program Supports European Employment While Adding to Employee Data Protections—Nearly One-Third of Privacy Shield Companies Rely on the Framework to Transfer HR Information of European Staff.

With the future of the US/EU Privacy Shield framework awaiting the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) Schrems IIdecision, the Future of Privacy Forum conducted a study of the companies enrolled in the cross-border privacy program and determined that 259 European headquartered companies are active Privacy Shield participants. This is a nearly 30% increase from last year’s total of 202 EU companies in the data transfer framework. These European firms rely on the program to transfer data to their US subsidiaries or to essential vendors that support their business needs. Nearly one-third of Privacy Shield companies use the mechanism to process human resources data—information that is crucial to employ, pay, and provide benefits to workers.

Thousands of major companies, many of which are headquartered or have offices in Europe, rely on the protections granted under the data transfer agreement. With a majority of companies surveyed in a recent IAPP study relying on Privacy Shield to transfer data out of the EU, and dozens of new companies joining each week to retain and pay their employees or create new job opportunities in Europe, the agreement is an integral data protection mechanism for European consumers and companies and the European marketplace as a whole.

The Numbers:

Overall, FPF found that more than 5,400 companies have signed up for Privacy Shield since the program’s inception – more than 1,000 participants joined in the last year.

Leading European companies that rely on Privacy Shield include:

– ALDI, German grocery market chain

– Eaton Corporation, Irish multinational management company

– Ingersoll-Rand, Irish globally diversified industrial company

– Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Irish biopharmaceutical company

– Lidl, German grocery market chain

– Logitech, Swiss computer peripherals manufacturer and software developer

– SAP, German multinational software corporation

– Siemens, German computer software company

– TE Connectivity, Swiss consumer electronics company

– Telefónica, Spanish mobile network provider

FPF research also determined…