As Europe's watchdogs finetune stance on data privacy, here's a primer on the EU - US Privacy Shield

Editor's note: this is a guest post from Sarah Pearce, a partner in the Cooley Technology Transactions Group. Next week, privacy watchdogs from EU member states are set to issue their opinions on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, the new, post-Safe Harbor framework agreement for transatlantic data flows. Below is a primer on what is in it (and what isn't).

The Safe Harbor agreement was negotiated and enshrined in law as recently as the year 2000, and was declared no longer valid just a decade-and-a-half later.

The speed of these developments reflects several factors; the relative novelty of legislators attempting to get to grips with the massive post-digital shifts in the sharing, transmitting, safeguarding and storing of information, the speed with which the sphere is still changing and developing and, perhaps most tellingly, the differing attitudes within the EU and the US when the privacy of citizens is under consideration.