EU Member States (the Article 31 Committee) approved today the EU-US Privacy Shield. The next step is formal adoption. The full press release can be found here.
The approval of the Privacy Shield is good news for companies who transfer personal data from the EU to the US. Although legal challenges to the Privacy Shield are likely, the Privacy Shield was designed to address the shortcomings cited by the European Court of Justice in the now invalidated Safe Harbor self-certification scheme and should have a better chance of standing up to those legal challenges.
Related DataPoints Posts:
U.S. Government Petitions to Join Data Privacy Litigation Against Facebook in Ireland (6/27/2016)

With two decades of experience as a practicing attorney, Karin McGinnis, CIPP US, has handled a wide variety of privacy and data security matters for her clients, with a special emphasis on privacy and data security issues in the workplace. Ms. McGinnis’ privacy and data security experience includes counseling and litigation regarding misappropriation of trade secrets, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and state computer trespass laws, common law privacy torts, discovery challenges posed by the Stored Communications Act, privacy of consumer financial information under Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and confidentiality rights concerning mental health consumers. Ms. McGinnis also handles a wide variety of data breach matters for her clients, including those involving PCI-DSS compliance, and has worked with the USSS and the FBI in investigating potential cyber-crime. She has assisted clients with drafting and creating data breach procedures, mobile device policies and agreements, FACTA Red Flag policies and procedures, online privacy policies, international ethics hotlines, international data transfer agreements, vendor agreements, and employee data security training. Ms. McGinnis is co-chair of the firm’s Privacy and Data Security Group.