Data security expert: “New EU-US data protection agreement is as questionable as its two predecessors”

Detlef Schmuck: “Companies should not rely on the new Data Privacy Framework because it is unlikely to stand up to scrutiny by the European Court of Justice.”

Hamburg, July 12, 2023 – “The new Data Privacy Framework for data exchange between the EU and the US will prove to be just as fragile as its two predecessors, Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield,” suspects Hamburg-based data security expert Detlef Schmuck. He explains: “Data protection plays a much smaller role in the USA than in Europe. Even the most sophisticated legal regulations cannot hide this fact as long as nothing changes in substance.” He warns: “Citizens and companies in the European Union are being lulled into a false sense of security that is in fact completely unjustified.”

Detlef Schmuck considers the EU Commission’s so-called equivalence decision to be “wrong in substance”. “There is neither an increase in US data protection to EU level nor a lowering of European standards to the low level of the USA. No matter how much political will and legal expertise you have, you can’t put apples and oranges on an equal footing,” says the Hamburg-based data security expert, contradicting Brussels-based EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.

According to Detlef Schmuck, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will put an end to the new Data Privacy Framework within a few years. The ECJ declared the two previous regulations, Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield, invalid following a complaint by Austrian lawyer Max Schrems. Schrems has already announced a lawsuit before the ECJ against the latest – third – attempt. “The Privacy Shield has lasted three years, I give the Data Privacy Framework a period of validity of at most the same length,” says Detlef Schmuck.

The data security expert therefore advises European businesses to continue to consistently store and process personal data in the EU legal area. “Outsourcing personal data to US cloud services should be avoided because the legal certainty conjured up by politicians is not a given,” advises Detlef Schmuck. The advice is not entirely altruistic: the TeamDrive cloud service he founded operates exclusively in the legal area of the Federal Republic of Germany and fulfills all legal requirements applicable in this country, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the principles for the proper management and storage of books, records and documents in electronic form and for data access (GoBD) of the Federal Ministry of Finance, and is even suitable for use by professional secrecy holders such as lawyers, doctors or tax consultants. “It’s better to play it safe than to rely on obviously shaky EU attempts,” says Detlef Schmuck, promoting German data services.

TeamDrive is regarded as “secure sync & share software made in Germany” for storing, synchronizing and sharing data and documents. It is based on end-to-end encryption, which ensures that only the user himself can read the data – neither TeamDrive nor any authority in the world can decrypt the data. This technical and legally binding security is appreciated by over 500,000 users and more than 5,500 companies from all sectors, from industry and healthcare to law firms, business and tax consultancy and public administration. TeamDrive ensures that all data is stored exclusively on servers in Germany and guarantees compliance with German data protection legislation. TeamDrive supports Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Android and iOS. The newly added Hornetdrive service further expands this position.