As reported in BNA’s Privacy Law Watch, EU Member States are working on an overarching privacy framework agreement with the United States. The framework agreement, which may be used as a starting point for future negotiations, aims to reduce the amount of time and resources required to prepare new agreements between the European Union and the United States.
Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, intends to finalize the agreement before the end of 2012. Commissioner Reding will discuss the agreement with FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week.
It appears the momentum on this transatlantic endeavor will carry through to the next scheduled meeting of the Article 29 Working Party on February 1-2, 2012. David Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Division of Consumer Protection, and Michael Donohue, Senior Policy Analyst at the OECD, are named in a draft agenda recently published by the Working Party. No further details of this meeting have been released.