"Judicial Redress Act of 2015 Presented to the President"
Less than a year following its introduction in Congress, the Judicial Redress Act of 2015 was presented to the President on February 12, 2016. According to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) in his Statement released on September 17, 2015, the intent is that the Act will (1) address the concerns expressed by the European Court of Justice when it overturned the US-EU Data Privacy Safe Harbor Agreement and (2) facilitate data exchange between the US and EU. As you will recall, the ECJ, as previously reported on this Blog, was concerned with the lack of redress rights for EU citizens.
The ultimate question is whether the Judicial Redress Act goes far enough to address this concern. The Act purports to give EU citizens the same rights to redress under the Privacy Act of 1974 that US citizens have. However, it could turn out that the extension of rights citizens under the Privacy Act of 1974 to EU citizens does not go far enough to meet the EU concerns. Add to that the fact that certain remedies available to US citizens are excluded from application to non-U.S. individuals under the Judicial Redress Act. The result is that we will have to wait and see the EU reaction, particularly as the details of the Privacy Shield framework continue to emerge.