Tag: European Economic Area

SaaS Agreements – Brexit – EU Data Transfers to the UK after Brexit

Under EU and UK data protection laws, UK SaaS suppliers are lawfully permitted to transfer personal data of SaaS customers located in the EU to any country within the EEA. From the 30th of March 2019, when the UK leaves the EU (“Brexit Date”), the UK will no longer be part of the EEA and will become a “third country” for data protection purposes, just like the USA.

The European Commission recently confirmed in a Notice that on the Brexit Date, UK based SaaS suppliers can no longer lawfully transfer personal data of SaaS customers located in the EU (i.e. in France, Germany, Spain etc.) to the UK,

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SaaS Agreements – Brexit – EU Data Transfers

Once the UK leaves the EU, the UK will no longer be a member of the EEA. UK SaaS suppliers will no longer be lawfully permitted to continue to transfer personal data of EU SaaS customers to the UK unless the UK government, or alternatively SaaS suppliers themselves, put in place measures to make the transfer legal under EU data protection laws.

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SaaS Agreements – FAQs – EU Standard Contractual Clauses

EU model clauses are standard data processing agreements that have been approved by the EU Commission as providing adequate protection. There are currently two sets of standard contractual clauses for transfers of personal data between data controllers and one set for transfers between a data controller and a data processor. EU model clauses must be used unamended (other than where specific details may be added, as set out in the notes to the clauses).

Where personal data is transferred from:

a data controller in the EU (SaaS customer) to a data processor outside of the EEA (SaaS supplier); or
a SaaS supplier within the EU to a sub-processor located outside of the EEA;

the SaaS supplier will need to enter into EU model clauses with the SaaS customer or SaaS sub-processor, as applicable.

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SaaS Agreements – FAQs – Transferring Data Outside the EEA

When negotiating a SaaS agreement with SaaS customers you will often need to transfer customer data outside of the EEA (European Economic Area). This could be at the request of your customer or more usually because you have a sub-contractor such as a data centre located outside of the EEA. SaaS suppliers should be aware of the following in order to comply with their duties under the Data Protection Act.

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