I flussi di dati transfrontalieri e le scelte delle imprese tra «Safe Harbor» e «Privacy Shield».

The Safe Harbour agreement was the result of an economic and political compromise between the European Union and the United States in the field of data protection, where the European regulatory model has demonstrated its influence in an interdependent world. The ECJ judgement has put an end to this compromise. Against this background, the author points out the different solutions that private companies may adopt in the short-, medium- and long-term. In this light, the article considers the chance of reaching a new international bilateral agreement in short time and the limits posed by the ECJ decision to this potential agreement. Focusing on the medium-term scenario, the author takes into account the impact of the Schrems case on the different legal alternatives for data transfer (data subject’s consent, standard contractual clauses, and binding corporate rules) and discusses the consequences of this judgement on business strategies. In the long-term scenario, a more optimistic outlook is possible, given the increasing demand for data protection coming from U.S. companies and society at large, as demonstrated by the support provided the U.S. business community to new regulatory initiatives and by the In re Microsoft Corp. case.