EU, US officials close in on broad privacy accords

After years of thorny negotiations, top EU and U.S. officials say they are close to agreement on two privacy accords that would regulate the transfer of personal data of European citizens to the U.S.

At stake is the ability of U.S. and European companies and governments to share data about private citizens for commercial and law enforcement purposes.

A version of one of the two privacy deals being discussed, the Safe Harbor accord, has been in force for years but is being renegotiated. Failure to reach agreement on how to change the accord would spell serious trouble for companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, which have relied on it to transmit data on EU citizens to the U.S. for processing and storage.

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