In addition to the immigration and humanitarian controversy surrounding President Trump’s ‘Extreme Vetting’ Executive Order last week, there are now reports that the order could jeopardize a six-month-old data sharing agreement between the EU and US which enables EU citizen’s personal data to flow through to the US for processing. MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on data protection regulation has voiced concerns over section 14 of the order which he says could invalidate the Privacy Shield Agreement which took years to negotiate. Any suspension of Privacy Shield would mean a return to legal uncertainty for the 1,500+ businesses currently processing EU data in the U.S. via this authorization framework — which includes the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft. The EU commission is currently investigating the full legal implications of the order on the agreement.

In other news… We were delighted to be acknowledged by the Hon. Scott Morrison, Federal Treasurer, during his recent G20 speech on Australian FinTech innovation and government policy. In the speech, Mr Morisson discussed Australian FinTech innovation and its ramifications for productivity, consumer empowerment and government policy. The treasurer went on to discuss the increasing trend of data monetization and acknowledged Data Republic as taking the leading role in technology development for secure data exchange. As a team, we’re both grateful and humbled by this type of global acknowledgement and support from a government clearly focused on innovation and productivity.

  Worth a read:

•  Andreas Weigend explores the ‘post-privacy economy’ and how we can all make our data work harder for us. (The article includes some great examples of companies delivering real consumer utility in exchange for data.)
• The Silicon Angle interviews Michael Kaiser, Executive Director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, on data privacy, ownership and individual valuation of our own data.

Until next week.