Japan is the latest country to be recognized by the European Union as providing adequate protection to data. The decision is one of mutual adequacy and creates the world’s largest area of safe data flows.
Per European commissioner Vera Jourova: “Europeans’ data will benefit from high privacy standards when their data is transferred to Japan. Our companies will also benefit from a privileged access to a 127 million consumers’ market.”
Before the adoption of the decision, Japan implemented additional safeguards to guarantee that data transferred from the EU enjoy protection in line with European standards. This included:
- a set of supplementary rules to bridge differences between the two data protection systems (specifically regarding sensitive data, the exercise of individual rights and cross border data transfers).
- assurances from the Japanese government that the access of Japanese public authorities to personal data for criminal law enforcement and national security purposes would be limited to what is necessary and proportionate
- a complaint handling mechanism to investigate and resolve complaints from Europeans regarding access to their data
Details from the International Association of Privacy Professionals.