EU moves closer to sewing up new data transfer deal with US

LONDON (AP) — The European Union has moved closer to a clinching a deal over transatlantic data transfers aimed at resolving concerns about U.S. spying with a draft decision that confirms “comparable safeguards” to those in the EU, which has stringent privacy rules. The EU’s executive Commission released its draft decision approving the pact. It follows a breakthrough preliminary agreement in March between Brussels and Washington to resolve a yearslong battle over the privacy of EU citizens’ data that businesses routinely store in the U.S. That breakthrough was hailed by business groups, which said it will provide certainty to thousands of companies sending data between Europe, which has stricter data privacy regulations, and the comparatively lax U.S., which lacks a federal privacy law.