Joint Statement by Věra Jourová, Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality and Haruhi Kumazawa, Commissioner of the Personal Information Protection Commission of Japan

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European Commissioner Věra Jourová and Commissioner Haruhi Kumazawa welcomed today the adoption, by the European Commission and the Personal Information Protection Commission (PPC), of the decisions recognising each other’s personal data protection system as equivalent.

These mutual adequacy findings create the world’s largest area of safe data transfers. They build on the high degree of convergence between the two systems, which rest notably on an overarching privacy law, a core set of individual rights and enforcement by an independent data protection authority. As data privacy and security have become a central factor of consumer trust, it is this type of convergence, based on strong laws and robust enforcement, that can ensure the sustainability of our increasingly data driven-economy and facilitate commercial flows.

The citizens of the EU and Japan will now enjoy solid protections of their personal data when transferred, while all their companies will benefit from free data transfers to each other’s economies. In this way, today’s decisions complement and enhance the benefits of the Economic Partnership Agreement and contribute to the strategic partnership between the EU and Japan.

With this mutual adequacy arrangement, the EU and Japan reaffirm their commitment to shared values in the field of privacy, and to strengthen their cooperation in shaping global standards based on a high level of protection of personal data.

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