Trump’s firing of FTC members puts US-EU data transfers at risks, legal experts say

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to fire Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission may jeopardize trans-Atlantic personal data transfers, regulated by the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF). The fallout could also have significant repercussions for businesses, according to legal experts.

On Tuesday, Trump fired two Democratic FTC Commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter. The news comes after the White House handed resignations to Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) in January.

“Together, PCLOB and the FTC were supposed to supervise how the U.S. protected Europeans’ personal data – from government agencies and companies, respectively,” writes Berin Szóka, president of the TechFreedom think tank. “Ending the independence of both agencies also likely dooms the European Commission’s 2023 determination that the US offered ‘adequate’ data protection.”

The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF) states that the U.S. provides a level of protection for personal data transferred from European companies that is adequate and comparable to EU standards. The legal framework has allowed European businesses and public bodies to store data in cloud services from U.S.-based companies such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon. The FTC and the PCLOB are in charge of ensuring that the U.S. side maintains its part of the deal to protect European data.

“As the U.S.-EU Privacy Framework for cross-border data transfers depends upon FTC enforcement, this is likely the death knell for such transfers,” David Solove, George Washington University Law School, writes on BlueSky.

The EU recently pledged to increase its digital sovereignty with the development of a “EuroStack,” and the Trump administration was reportedly considering withdrawing from the data transfer agreement as tensions rise.

Trump’s decision to remove Democratic members of the FTC, “particularly on grounds that are subject to legal challenge and may appear partisan,” may undermine the EU’s confidence in the data transfer deal, adds Steven Robinson, former chief privacy officer of electronics company Ricoh USA.

The fired Democrat members of the PCLOB have already filed litigation while FTC Commissioners Bedoya and Slaughter have pledged to do the same.

“These developments could trigger earlier judicial challenges to the DPF in Europe, accelerate the [European Commission’s] reassessment, or both,” Robinson tells Privacy Daily. “It will be interesting to see how [Austrian privacy activist and EU lawyer] Max Schrems, European privacy regulators, and the U.S. business community react to this development.”

Article Topics

biometric data  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  data protection  |  data sharing  |  EU  |  Europe  |  FTC  |  Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB)  |  U.S. Government  |  United States