The Privacy Shield is a framework that allows companies to comply with EU data protection law when transferring personal data from the EU to the United States.
The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU), has determined that the Privacy Shield provides "essentially equivalent" protection for personal data to what is available under EU law, thereby allowing companies to transfer personal data from the EU to the United States without relying on standard contractual clauses or other alternative legal mechanisms.
The Privacy Shield includes written commitments by U.S. intelligence agencies and a requirement that European citizens have access to U.S. courts in order to pursue complaints if they believe their rights have been violated under the Privacy Shield framework.
