From safe harbour to European data protection reform

European personal data protection laws have set the electronic communication privacy standards for more than two decades. Among these standards, the Commission Decision 2000/520/EC of 26 July 2000 pursuant to Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament (The Safe Harbour Decision) stood out as a cornerstone of transatlantic data protection regime. The Court of Justice of the EU decision in Maximillian Schrems vs. Data Protection Commissioner in late 2015 has declared the decision invalid. In the light of the long standing legislative reform of the European Data Protection legal framework and the revelations of widely spread unauthorized electronic surveillance, data collection, interception and access by intelligence services and authorities of several countries, there is an urgent need for improved data protection rules, especially regarding collection and export data via cloud services established and hosted outside EU. The purpose of this article is to analyse publicly available reform proposals concerning in the light of the recent ECJ Safe Harbour decision, as well as the developments regarding the future EU-US Privacy Shield proposal.