FEB 04, 2016 | EUROPEAN UNION | US
BSA President and CEO Victoria Espinel Provides Insight on Privacy Shield with The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor, February 3, 2016
By Jaikumar Vijayan
From the standpoint of many in the tech industry, the deal is both a victory and a relief.
Victoria Espinel, president the tech industry trade group The Software Alliance, said the deal is the outcome of intense, months-long negotiations between officials at the US Department of Commerce and the EC. She said it reflects a pragmatic understanding, on both sides of the Atlantic, of the need to find a mutually acceptable way to sustain the estimated half trillion dollars trade relationship that had been enabled by Safe Harbor.
"Both the US and EU negotiators were constantly aware of the concerns that were raised by the court," said Ms. Espinel, who was in Davos in the days before the agreement representing software industry interests.
"They very much bore those in mind throughout the last phase of the negotiations."
Espinel said the new pact would introduce some stability and predictability into a situation where US companies might otherwise have been subjected to varying privacy requirements from individual EU member nations, said Espinel. "One of the concerns we had was being in a situation where our member companies would have to deal with a patchwork of privacy regulations.”
Original Posting: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2016/0203/Can-EU-US-data-pact-survive-without-surveillance-reform
ABOUT BSA
The Business Software Alliance (www.bsa.org) is the global trade association of the enterprise software industry, representing companies that are leaders in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and other cutting-edge technologies. We work in over 20 markets in the US, Europe, and Asia, advocating for policies that build trust in technology so that every industry sector and the public can benefit from innovation. BSA also supports its members and their customers by raising awareness of the risks of unlicensed software use and the benefits of software asset management, driving license compliance and software adoption around the world through sound IT procurement.