SaaS Agreements: EU-US Adequacy Decision – Update

Following the Schrems II judgment, the EU-US Privacy Shield was declared invalid, meaning that SaaS suppliers and SaaS customers have to use standard contractual clauses (SCS) or BCRs when making transfers of EEA (or UK) personal data to the USA. In addition, SaaS customers and SaaS suppliers are required to carry out a data transfer impact assessment (DTIA) prior to transferring any personal data from the EEA or UK to a “third country” i.e. the USA.

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SaaS Agreements – Data Retention and Deletion

In compliance with their respective obligations under the GDPR, SaaS suppliers and SaaS customers must only keep personal data for as long as necessary and as specified to data subjects. SaaS suppliers should include their obligations in relation to retention and deletion of personal data when acting as a data processor in their SaaS agreement and when acting as a data controller in their privacy policy.

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SaaS Agreements – New UK SCCs – IDTA and UK Addendum

Since the EU-US Privacy Shield was declared invalid following the Schrems II decision in 2020 of the ECJ, SaaS suppliers and SaaS customers have had to use EU standard contractual clauses, (“EU SCCs”) or binding corporate rules (“BCRs”) when transferring personal data from the EEA, UK or Switzerland to a third country not deemed “adequate” by the European Commission.

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SaaS Agreements – FAQs – Cookies

Cookies are small text files placed on a user’s hardware device, such as a computer, tablet or mobile phone which record online activity. The majority of websites use cookies to measure visits and the use of websites (analytics cookies). Cookies are often also used to save user names, passwords and user preferences to make repeated use of a website more comfortable for the user. However, increasingly cookies are being used to collect information about users for the purposes of targeted marketing, tracking and other non essential purposes.

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SaaS Agreements – GDPR – EU-US Privacy Shield Invalid

On the 16th of July 2020 the EU-US Privacy Shield was ruled invalid with immediate effect by the European Court of (“CJEU”). The steps that SaaS suppliers now need to take depend on the scale and type of international data flows and the transfer mechanisms used. If you rely solely upon the EU-US Privacy Shield for transfers to the US, you must replace the Privacy Shield with the EU Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (“SCCs”).

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