Article

Corporate binding rules

The ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) has published a standard application form for use in obtaining the approval by EU data protection commissioners of binding corporate rules which aim to regulate the transfer of personal data outside the EEA for multinational companies.

The transfer of personal data outside the EEA is subject to strict conditions in order to ensure that it is transferred to organisations and countries which will adequately safeguard the rights of the data subject in relation to his data. This restriction has always caused difficulties for multi-national companies which need to transfer data between different branches of the company or different subsidiaries of the group. As a result, the EU agreed that binding corporate rules could be drawn up and individually approved by the EU, to facilitate the transfer of data intra-group. However, in practice, to obtain approval of binding
corporate rules has proven very difficult and few companies have thus chosen to follow this route. This has in part been due to the information and data which a company has to provide to the relevant
data protection commissioner in making any application for approval. The ICC has published the standard application form to assist multi-nationals to consider the information which they need to submit to the relevant data protection commissioner to enable approval of the binding corporate rules. The application form includes information on the binding nature of the rules (i.e. an explanation of how compliance with the rules is ensured), a description of processing and data flows, description of how the core data protection safeguards are addressed, and mechanisms used to inform the group entities of any changes to the rules. Multi-national organisations can rely on binding corporate rules only if they are backed up by stringent internal data protection measures and a comprehensive and workable enforcement strategy. The application form does not remove the need for this, but it is hoped it will address all organisations’ attention to the specific needs which should be tackled with regard to the international transfer of personal data.

For further enquiries please contact Genevieve Mead on 01892 701308 or email genevieve.mead@
ts-p.co.uk.

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