By Joey Gardiner, 7 January 2002 16:10
NEWS The EU has allowed Canada into its tight circle of states to which it approves data transfer, after a decision made by the European Commission on Friday. Canada has become one of just three countries outside the EU - the others including Hungary and Switzerland - to meet the EU's exacting criteria over data protection, to allow personal data to be moved back and forth. In a statement the Commission said: "Canada is considered as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the Community." European data protection legislation prevents any business moving personal data outside of the EU, because in other areas the subjects of the data don't have the same safeguards about how it will be treated. This rule causes problems to many companies, especially globalised ebusinesses, where information on British customers may be held on servers in the US. US companies currently have to sign up to a "safe harbour" agreement whereby they agree to abide by certain principals of data use.
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