The pact allows firms to transfer data from the EU to America if they provide safeguards equivalent to those required by the EU's data-protection directive (hence "safe harbour").
The Irish data-protection authority said it could not second-guess the European Commission, which, by signing the safe-harbour pact, had declared America's data-protection rules adequate.
The pact allows firms to transfer data from the EU to America if they provide safeguards equivalent to those required by the EU's data-protection directive (hence "safe harbour").