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European advocates might blackball a compromise allowing American companies like Facebook ( FB ), Google ( GOOGL ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) to continue trans-Atlantic data transfers, according to a leaked document. The Article 29 Working Party is set to unveil its official decision Wednesday, but portions of a leaked document — since deleted — suggest the privacy officials are hedging on approving the European Union-U.S. agreement. Privacy advocates have railed against the initial agreement, released in late February, calling it too flimsy. The agreement would replace the 15-year-old Safe Harbor accord monitoring data transfers between the U.S. and EU. A European court struck down the Safe Harbor agreement in October, saying U.S. privacy laws aren’t up to snuff with their EU counterparts. Now, the EU needs approval from the Article 29 Working Party to move forward on formalizing the new agreement, which would allow the U.S. intelligence community to collect “bulk” intelligence for six specific purposes. German lawyer Carlo Piltz posted the leaked document, which says, in part, “some of the clarifications and concerns — in particular relating to national security — may also impact the viability of the other transfer tools.” “Therefore, the WP29 is not yet in a position to confirm that the current draft adequacy decision does, indeed, ensure a level of protection that is essentially equivalent to that in the EU,” according to the document. Austrian grad student Max Schrems brought the original case against Facebook that shuttered the Safe Harbor law. In a statement following the new framework’s release, Schrems questioned European authorities’ view on the situation. “I unfortunately feel that the current policymakers within the European Commission have not seen this situation as an opportunity to work toward an improved framework that would protect the fundamental right to privacy, but instead as a problem that shall now be swept under the rug,” he wrote. Scalper1 News
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