HP to bridge US and EU privacy policies

Hewlett Packard (HP) claims it is the first major technology company to take part in the 'safe harbour' agreement between the US and the European Union (EU), which aims to safeguard the transfer of personal information between the two regions.

The company described the agreement as a set of self-regulatory policies that bring together the regions' different approaches to data privacy. The move is expected to ease the substantial amount of cross-border activities that HP carries out between its global offices and suppliers.

Barbara Lawler, customer privacy manager at HP, said the company believes consumer confidence would be enhanced by ensuring that customer privacy rights are protected while doing business on and offline.

"Ecommerce will grow faster if consumer confidence is reinforced by company efforts to ensure consumers have an effective recourse for privacy complaints through agreements like the safe harbour," she said.

The agreement enforces the EU's data privacy directive within participating companies, and bans the flow of personal information about EU citizens into countries that do not have "adequate" privacy protection.

However, some privacy advocates have criticised the agreement, which took two years to be negotiated, as being weak and unenforceable.

Also, according to the Privacy Council, which provides advice on corporate privacy issues, some companies may be reluctant to participate because of the cost of changing privacy policies, its impact on domestic privacy debates, and the difficulty and expense of maintaining separate privacy policies for Europe and the US.