Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On March 26, 2013, the Article 29 Working Party issued a press release on the recent developments concerning cooperation between the EU and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group (“APEC”) on cross-border data transfer rules. A joint EU-APEC committee, which includes the French and German data protection authorities as well as the European Data Protection Supervisor and the European Commission, has been studying similarities and differences between the EU’s binding corporate rules (“BCRs”) framework and APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules. The committee’s goal is to facilitate data protection compliance in this area for international businesses operating in the EU and the APEC region, including by creating a common frame of reference for both sets of cross-border data transfer rules.

The French data protection authority has been appointed as the Article 29 Working Party’s rapporteur in this matter.

As we reported earlier this month, in January 2013, representatives of the Article 29 Working Party and APEC met in Indonesia to discuss interoperability between BCRs and the Cross-Border Privacy Rules governing international data transfers.