U.S., Europe Work On Privacy Agreement

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October 08, 1998 (4:17 PM EDT)

By Mo Krochmal,

OTTAWA -- The United States and the European Union are likely to reach an agreement on data privacy, William Daley, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, said Thursday.

The European Union's Directive on Data Protection, which says data cannot be transferred from Europe to a site in a country outside the Union unless that country's laws provide comparable privacy protections and a regulatory agency to enforce them, is set to go into effect on Oct. 25. The European view is that U.S. privacy laws are not adequate.

"I do feel this issue must be, and will be, brought to some sort of positive conclusion," Daley said Thursday at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Ministerial Conference on Electronic Commerce.

"I would hope that there is an agreement reached by the deadline, so we do not see steps being taken by the member states that will have a negative impact on the economy of their states and ... potential negative impact on the economy in the United States."

If the deadline passes, Daley said, it may be difficult to unravel action that Europe takes.

But the 25th is not a deadline, it would only signal the start of a process, he added. "It's not as though on the 26th action would be taken that would have a devastating immediate impact," he said.