On January 23, 2019, the European Commission has adopted its adequacy decision for Japan as per Article 45 of the GDPR, allowing personal data to flow freely and safely between EU and Japan.
An adequacy decision is a decision taken by the European Commission establishing that a third country provides a comparable level of protection of personal data to that in the European Union, through its domestic law or its international commitments. As a result, personal data can flow safely from the European Economic Area (EEA) (the 28 EU Member States as well Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) to a third country, without being subject to any further safeguards or authorisations.
The adoption of adequacy decision for Japan creates the world's largest area of safe and free data transfer based on a high level of protection. Even though the EU already has adequacy decisions with several other countries, this is the first time the EU and a third country agreed on a mutual recognition of the adequate level of data protection since the General Data Protection Regulation came into force.
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