La tutela dei dati personali tra esigenze di sicurezza nazionale, interessi economici e diritti fondamentali della persona (dal Safe Harbour al Privacy Shield )

The present paper focuses on the interplay between, on the one hand, the fundamental right to protection of personal data and, on the other hand, the needs of national security, as stemming from the Schrems judgment recently delivered by the European Court of Justice (C-362/14). Accordingly, this paper first examines the findings which led the Court to rule for the invalidity of the « Safe Harbor » decision, in which the European Commission had considered that the United States ensured an adequate level of protection of the personal data transferred by EU Member States. The paper then comments on the different approaches to data protection existing in the European Union and in the United States. Subsequently, the consequences of the Schrems judgment are examined, analyzing, first, the immediate alternative solutions open to companies in order to keep transferring data to non-EU countries in the aftermath of the ruling, and, second, the new agreement (« EU-US Privacy Shield ») signed by the European Commission and United States to replace the « Safe Harbor » scheme. Finally, the paper comments on the latest legislation adopted by the European Union, in the context of the reach for a Digital Single Market, in order to tackle the issue of ensuring an effective protection of personal data throughout the EU (regulation (EU) 2016/679; directive (EU) 2016/680 and directive (EU) 2016/681).