Privacy group launches legal challenge against EU-US data pact

A widely expected legal challenge has been filed by an Irish privacy advocacy group to an European Union-US commercial data transfer pact underpinning billions of dollars of trade in digital services just two months after it came into force. The EU-US Privacy Shield was agreed earlier in 2016 after the European Union's highest court struck down the previous Safe Harbour agreement over the transfer of Europeans' personal data to the United States, on concerns about intrusive US surveillance. The new agreement gives businesses moving personal data across the Atlantic - from human resources information to people's browsing histories to hotel bookings - an easy way to do so without falling foul of tough EU data transferral rules.

Digital Rights Ireland has challenged the adoption of the Privacy Shield pact by the EU executive in front of the second-highest EU court because it does not contain adequate privacy protections, apparently.