By Sarah Left, 31 October 2000 18:30
NEWS Experts are watching with interest to see how American firms react to the Federal Trade Commission-backed scheme, which resulted from two years of intense transatlantic negotiation. Mike Pullen, ecommerce lawyer with DLA, said US companies will be encouraged to abide by Safe Harbour because they fear being made the example case the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) needs to prove it means business. He said: "If you get it wrong in the US, the FTC's decision can be used as a basis for damages. It opens the door for costly civil action." Christopher Uppton, CEO of Clicksure, added that like any self-regulatory scheme, the potential for abuse lies with a few rogue companies failing to obey the rules. "There needs to be some tough decisions made at some point and some examples made of companies who are not complying with the spirit of Safe Harbour," he said. Even so, Uppton said concerns about privacy within the US have already changed the attitudes of US companies towards data protection. "Large internet companies in the States are actually very advanced in how they treat personal information and in their respect for an individual's privacy. That is in response to commercial pressure," he said. The 1998 Data Protection Directive prohibited the transfer of personally identifying data outside the EU unless the country receiving it had adequate data protection regulations in place. As the US has no federal data protection laws, the country was in danger of being blacklisted for data transfer. Since 1998, there has been a moratorium on enforcement against cross-border data transfer until Safe Harbour came into force.
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