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On 7th March 2022, President Biden officially signed an Executive Order describing the United States’ commitments to facilitate the transfer of data between the European Union and the US(Espinoza & Fedor, 2022). The agreement resulted in the opening of a new chapter in the transatlantic negations concerning the future data sharing between both occidental parties. The White House seeks to open new talks following the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decision regarding the Privacy Shield(European Digital Rights, 2020). In July 2020, the CJEU judged the Privacy Shield, as inefficient to protect European residents’ private data(European Digital Rights, 2020). This major victory for Europeans guarantees the closure of their data from big corporations, such as Facebook. To prevent the misuse a of EU residents’ private data, the ruling demanded the necessity to introduce robust privacy legislation in the US and, as well as a rigorous monitoring of data protection measures in existence(European Digital Rights 2020).

The actual agreement would significantly limit the control of American security agencies to have access to European personal information (Espinoza & Fedor, 2022). To guarantee that any abuse will be punished, this agreement would give new power to American civil liberties protection agents. Their mission will be to investigate any violation of this agreement regarding people’s privacy. The agreement includes the possibility for any European citizens to report complaints if they believe they are surveilled unlawfully (Manancourt et al., 2022). People will allow filing lawsuits to challenge the proceeding of their data by American national agencies. This treaty is part of the Biden Administration’s policy of rapprochement. Gina Raimondo, US commerce Secretary, qualified this Executive Order as a wish to “restore trust and stability to transatlantic data flows” (Espinoza & Fedor, 2022). Therefore, this witness Biden wishes to reconnect the European Union and the United States as one technological entity.

Bibliography:

Espinoza, J., & Fedor, L. (2022, October 7). US moves to implement new EU data-sharing agreement. Subscribe to read | Financial Times. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.ft.com/content/1e6a6235-6255-41cb-ab25-1e28d2ea64eb

European Digital Rights (EDRi). (2020, September 15). A victory for us all: European Court of justice makes landmark ruling to invalidate the Privacy Shield. European Digital Rights (EDRi). Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://edri.org/our-work/a-victory-for-us-all-european-court-of-justice-makes-landmark-ruling-to-invalidate-the-privacy-shield/

Manancourt, V., Scott, M., & Goujard, C. (2022, July 10). Biden signs executive order on EU-U.S. Data Privacy Agreement. POLITICO. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/07/biden-executive-order-eu-data-privacy-agreement-00060872

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In 2016, Nice was hit by terrorist attacks, in a surge to create a safer environment, the city mayor began collaborating with diverse security companies. In this continuity, their administration launched the project “SafeCity”, and started to collaborate with the controversial firm, Oosto(Dubedout, 2020).
Oosto is an Israeli company specializing in facial recognition, powered by artificial intelligence. Oosto’s technology has successfully transformed surveillance systems from “passive cameras into proactive security systems” (Lunden, 2021). Multinationals, such as BP, have been very interested in Oosto services (Dave & Dastin, 2021), to gain security over their installations and staff. Oosto has demonstrated to be a very successful company, following a capital raise of $235 million by Softbank and Eldrige (Lunden, 2021). However, despite that this sector appears very lucrative, the question of abuse towards minorities is especially relevant.
The Business and Human Rights Resource Center have investigated companies that have facilitated human rights abuse on minorities (Skelton, 2022). Their conclusion indicates that several firms, including Oosto, have failed to operate with transparency and did set up sufficient grievance procedures for external people who were affected by their goods (Skelton, 2022). To respond to the abuse, the Canadian authorities have labeled Oosto’s facial recognition as “illegal” and banned the technology from their territory (Lunden, 2021). In the United States, this technology still appears to be sensible as it has been conducted in to arrest of dozens of innocents (Donato, 2022). Numerous privacy concerns have been raised in the implementation of the surveillance system. The lack of safeguards guaranteeing our data protection threatens our freedom (The Editorial Board Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2022).
Therefore, Oosto implementation represents a direct to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The adoption of such technology appears to be still too early, and it negatively impacts our freedom.

Source:
Dave, P., & Dastin, J. (2021, April 20). Exclusive why a U.S. Hospital and Oil Company turned to facial recognition. Reuters. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/exclusive-why-us-hospital-oil-company-turned-facial-recognition-2021-04-20/
Donato, D. (2022, October 5). After dozens of wrongful arrests, a new bill is cracking down on facial recognition tech for law enforcement. dot.LA. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://dot.la/facial-recognition-new-bill-2658401500.html?utm_campaign=post-teaser&utm_content=nxw20xgw
Dubedout, C. (2020, March 11). Nice “safe city” : An acceleration of experiments for three years. AIregulation.com. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://ai-regulation.com/safe-city-project-in-nice-testing-facial-recognition/
The Editorial Board Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (2022, September 28). Editorial: Ban facial recognition until legal safeguards are in place. Gazette. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2022/09/28/facial-recognition-privacy-law-enforcement-drone-camera-police-surveillance-clearview-ai-pittsburgh/stories/202209280032
Lunden, I. (2021, July 7). AnyVision, the controversial facial recognition startup, has raised $235m led by Softbank and Eldridge. TechCrunch. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/07/anyvision-the-controversial-facial-recognition-startup-has-raised-235m-led-by-softbank-and-eldridge/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJR-_L4cUpwChmU3ADr5vnvVZbwY4d8b7Suhh2gc0i-MflAsLBOJzTpY3H0HVwmOv9JDYK8Vr2zudSAPrVNYJAlMjZLHpZJdM2nSJS-yx4K3dWQXfulsI7B5VOpUX9QCIXKKOc-C1dL0e0zmhPcrqhj4LqmuOBBv0UEmtos7a5yv
Skelton, S. K. (2022, September 30). Surveillance Tech firms complicit in MENA human rights abuses. ComputerWeekly.com. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252525584/Surveillance-tech-firms-complicit-in-MENA-human-rights-abuses