Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On March 21, 2014, the Article 29 Working Party (the “Working Party”) issued a Working Document containing draft ad-hoc contractual clauses for transfers of personal data from data processors in the EU to data sub-processors outside the EU (the “Working Document”).

Standard contractual clauses (“SCCs”) are one of the mechanisms that provide a legal basis for complying with the EU restrictions on transferring personal data outside the EU. Currently, however, the existing SCCs apply only to transfers of personal data from data controllers in the EU to data processors outside the EU. Accordingly, the Working Party saw a need for a separate set of contractual clauses to provide a legal basis for transferring personal data from data processors in the EU to other data processors outside the EU.

The Working Document emphasizes that the draft contractual clauses do not constitute an official and finalized set of SCCs that could be used by data processors in the EU to comply with EU legal restrictions on international data transfers. The Working Document is intended to provide advice to the European Commission should it decide to amend or supplement the existing SCCs, and to promote a more uniform approach to applying EU national rules for the authorization of international data transfers.