Biden signs executive order on privacy protections in intelligence data

By Doug Cunningham


President Joe Biden speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Monday. Friday Biden signed an executive order enhancing privacy and civil liberties protections for personal data collected by U.S. intelligence agencies. Photo by Shawn Thew/UPI | License Photo


Oct. 7 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday to enhance privacy and civil liberties protections for people's personal data collected by U.S. intelligence agencies as part of an agreement with the European Union on transatlantic data transfers.

The Biden executive order mandates that U.S. intelligence agencies only collect data from signals intelligence "in pursuit of defined national security objectives."

It sets up a Data Protection Review Court at the Justice Department to allow individuals to challenge how personal data is used by intelligence agencies.

Biden's action was taken based on a commitment to foster trans-Atlantic data flows while addressing Court of Justice concerns in Europe about privacy in personal data transfers to the United States.

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The order directs steps the United States will take to implement the European Union-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

According to the White House, the order will add privacy safeguards for U.S. intelligence activities, requiring privacy and civil liberties be taken into consideration.

The White House said in a statement Friday that transatlantic data flows "are critical to enabling the $7.1 trillion EU-U.S. economic relationship."

The European Commission will incorporate Biden's executive order into its own rules for transatlantic data transfers to satisfy the Court of Justice data privacy concerns in E.U.-U.S. data transfers.


A White House statement said, "These steps will provide the European Commission with a basis to adopt a new adequacy determination, which will restore an important, accessible, and affordable data transfer mechanism under EU law. It will also provide greater legal certainty for companies using Standard Contractual Clauses and Binding Corporate Rules to transfer EU personal data to the United States."