Data transfer from an EU country to the US is no longer allowed

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) announced a landmark ruling on 16 July 2020. The Privacy Shield is now invalid, and the transfer of personal data from an EU country to the US is no longer allowed. The reason for this is the insufficient level of data protection in the USA. Personal data cannot be protected from access by US intelligence and other US surveillance agencies. Therefore, transmission can only take place under defined exceptional circumstances.

To what extent is inSign affected by this decision?

The electronic signature inSign is not affected by this decision, as the applications run on servers located within the EU or EEA. If inSign is provided directly by us in an SaaS operation, this condition is fulfilled. Our servers are located exclusively in Germany. Private data will not be transferred to the USA. Recently, our e-signature inSign was awarded the “Software Made in Germany” and “Software Hosted in Germany” seals. Therefore, we can continue to proudly speak of maintaining high standards in data protection. If the servers are operated by the customer himself, the question of location should be clarified. A server in the USA is not advisable. inSign, therefore, offers considerable advantages over other providers of electronic signatures.

What does that mean for you?

If you use our software for electronic signature and the application is running on our servers, you do not need to do anything else. If you use other cloud services apart from inSign, we recommend clarifying where the servers are located. If the service provider does not give you a clear answer, you should change providers and make sure that your data storage complies with the GDPR. This is the case if the data is located within the EU or the EEA and no reference to a third country is possible when transferring the data. You no doubt use social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram & Co. Here it will be exciting to see how such platforms will deal with the ruling, because a large number of them are based in the USA and operate their servers there. One possibility would be to obtain a declaration of consent from the user for the transfer of data to the USA. But many will be beginning to re-think their choices at this point.

Are you interested in our legally compliant and data protection compliant software? Then why not request more information now and try out inSign for four weeks free of charge.

About the author

Christina Detling – Online Marketing Specialist

Christina has been working at inSign for over four years and is happy to pass on her knowledge of electronic signatures and digitisation.