EU Digital Trade Policy Proposal Opens a Loophole for Data Protectionism

As Nigel Cory writes for Euronews, it’s well past time to update European Union trade policy for the digital age. The European Commission took a step in the right direction with its recently outlined vision for global trade rules covering digital flows. However, the proposed rules create a massive loophole allowing countries to use privacy as a carte blanche justification to enact any and all barriers to data flows. Instead of a broad, self-judging exception for privacy, the Commission should develop a framework that covers the sizable range of legitimate privacy policies that countries use, and most importantly, one emphasizing that firms will be held accountable for ensuring that a country’s data protection rules flow with the data.