On 17 July 2018, the European Union (the “EU”) and Japan reached an agreement to recognize each other’s data protections systems as “equivalent”, and each commits to complete internal procedures by fall 2018 (the “Data Agreement”). Once adopted, this will allow businesses to transfer personal data from the European Economic Area ¹⁾The EEA brings together the EU Member States and the three EFTA (European Free Trade Association) States (Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) into a … Continue reading(the “EEA”) to Japan and vice versa without being required to provide further additional safeguards for each transfer.

The Data Agreement concludes the two-year-long dialogue regarding mutual recognition of personal data protection regimes between the two parties, and it was issued along with the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, a long-awaited EU-Japan free trade deal. Prior to the final Data Agreement, in December 2017, the governments issued a joint statement to resolve issues essentially within the existing personal data protection framework to enable free data transfer between the two parties.
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