Since 1995, the European Union has done everything to facilitate the circulation of personal data on its territory while ensuring respect for the rights of its citizens. Indeed, Directive 95/46/EC states in this regard that "in order to eliminate obstacles to the circulation of personal data, the level of protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals with regard to the processing of such data must be equivalent in all Member States".
This is the very purpose of this standard. Since then, all member states, as well as states party to the European Economic Area (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), can transfer personal data between themselves. country email list
Thus, the transposition of this standard for the member states (or the accession for the states party to the EEA), is the sine qua non condition for carrying out an international transfer of personal data.
However, this data also transits to states outside the European Union and not party to the EEA.o be certain that a state offers protection of human rights "substantially equivalent" to that guaranteed by the European Union, the European Commission must look at the applicable legal framework.
Following an agreement with the European Commission in 2000, American companies benefited from what was called "Safe Harbor". This was a set of provisions governing the protection of personal data, to which American companies could freely adhere in order to receive such data from the European Union.
Safe Harbor then constituted a sufficient level of protection for European data to transit to the United States.