By Illustration by William Joel / The Verge
The European Union and the US have settled on a new transatlantic data-sharing pact. In an announcement on Monday, the European Commission says the new framework should allow information to flow freely between both locations, easing risks for social media companies that operate across them.
The decision comes three years after the EU’s top court struck down the Privacy Shield, a protocol that let companies based in the US collect and process data from EU citizens. At the time, the court said the Privacy Shield didn’t do enough to keep users’ data out of the hands of US intelligence agencies. This was a blow to companies like Meta and Amazon, as data collection is an essential part of their businesses.
When this policy was annulled, it…