On February 24, 2016, President Obama signed the Judicial Redress Act of 2015 (“the Act”) into law, a major step toward formalizing the recently announced privacy framework, the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, which will replace the Safe Harbor program that was declared invalid by the European Court of Justice in October 2015. The Act’s intent, as explained by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), is to reestablish the United States’ credibility with the European Union following the highly-publicized leaks of classified information in the recent years.
The Act extends to the citizens of EU countries that permit commercial transfers of personal data
[to the United States] similar rights to those enjoyed by US citizens under the Privacy Act of 1974, which established a code of fair information practices that govern the federal government’s collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of information about individuals. The citizens of these EU countries will now be allowed to sue the United States for unlawful disclosure of their personal information obtained in connection with international law enforcement efforts. Under current law, only US citizens and legal residents can bring such claims against the federal government.
Read the text of the Act here.