With the recent decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidating the Privacy Shield framework (Court of Justice of the European Union – Grand Chamber – 16 July 2020 – C-311/18 – Schrems II – see our alert here) and subjecting the Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) to higher standard of enforcement, global companies with the need to transfer data across the world, and especially across the Atlantic, are now required to re-assess their data transfer mechanisms.

While both Privacy Shield and the SCCs predates the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/79 dated 27 April 2016, which enter into force on 25 May 2018 (GDPR) , the new regulation aimed at providing stakeholders with additional tools to self-regulate and safeguard the privacy of individuals in the European Union

Among them, and while still confidential, the implementation of codes of conduct is encouraged under Art. 40 GDPR and by the dedicated Guidelines 1/2019 on Codes of Conduct and Monitoring Bodies under Regulation 2016/79 dated 04 June 2019 of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB). As a matter of fact, the advantages of such codes of conducts go beyond the mere facilitation of data transfers, and provide data controllers and data processors alike with a complete sectorial framework for GDPR compliance.