Tech giants from the US were allowed to store the data of European users on American servers

The European Union has adopted a plan that will allow tech giants from the US to continue to store data about European users on American territory, writes Engadget.

In a decision announced on July 10, the European Commission approved the Trans-Atlantic Framework Agreement on Data Privacy. Under its terms, the US will create a court that Europeans can turn to if they believe an American technology platform has violated their data privacy rights.

US President Joe Biden announced the creation of the Data Protection Review Court in an executive order he signed last fall. The court may issue orders to delete user data and take other measures to remedy the situation. The framework agreement also limits the access of American intelligence services to the data of European users.

The Trans-Atlantic Framework Agreement is the latest chapter in a story that has been going on for more than a decade. This year, the EU fined Meta for a record €1.2 billion after finding that the practice of moving user data from the EU to US servers violated the bloc’s digital privacy laws.

The EU also ordered Meta to delete data it already stored on its US servers unless the company had a legal way to store that information by the fall.

As noted by The Wall Street Journal, the framework agreement reached should allow Meta to avoid having to delete any data, but the company may still end up paying a fine.