European Fee ignores calls to reassess Israel knowledge adequacy
The European Fee (EC) has been ignoring calls to reassess Israel’s knowledge adequacy standing for over a yr, regardless of “pressing issues” concerning the nation’s knowledge safety framework and conduct in Gaza.
In April 2024, a coalition of 17 civil society teams coordinated by European Digital Rights (EDRi) signed an open letter voicing their issues concerning the fee’s January 2024 resolution to uphold Israel’s adequacy standing (see field), which allows the continued free move of information between the nation and the European Union (EU) on the idea that every has “basically equal” knowledge safety requirements.
Regardless of their requires clarification from the fee on “six pivotal issues” – together with the rule of legislation in Israel, the scope of its knowledge safety frameworks, the function of intelligence businesses, and the onward switch of information past Israel’s internationally recognised borders – the teams acquired no response, prompting them to creator a second open letter in late June 2025.
“Since then [April 2024], Israel’s authorized and political trajectory has solely deepened our issues, together with the adoption of latest legal guidelines undermining unbiased oversight, escalating human rights violations in Gaza, and the continued erosion of the rule of legislation and judicial independence,” they wrote.
“The mix of authorized reforms, unchecked intelligence entry and the operational deployment of EU-linked knowledge in repressive practices additional undermines the credibility of Israel’s adequacy standing.”
Given the nation’s tech sector accounts for 20% of its total financial output and 53% of complete exports, in accordance with a mid-2024 report printed by the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), shedding adequacy might have a profound impact on Israel’s total financial system.
“From a worldwide perspective, high-tech’s centrality within the Israeli financial system is a singular phenomenon,” the IIA mentioned. “Its share of Israeli GDP … is just like that of pure minerals comparable to oil and fuel within the economies of these counters that depend on them. Contemplating the centrality of high-tech, modifications within the sector could affect your complete financial system.”
Financial significance
Based on a session on privateness legal guidelines launched by the Israeli Ministry of Justice in November 2022 – which proposed a lot of modifications to Israel’s knowledge safety framework particularly designed to retain Israel’s adequacy standing – knowledge adequacy “is of broad financial significance to the Israeli financial system, in addition to nice significance in facets of the State of Israel’s overseas relations”.
Related issues have additionally been raised by MEPs within the European Parliament, who requested the fee in January 2025 whether or not “the continuing use of non-public knowledge [by Israel] in methods opposite to GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] rules” (together with for “large-scale surveillance” and “to focus on people in Gaza”) means it can reassess its adequacy resolution.
European commissioner Michael McGrath responded that, based mostly on its analysis, the fee doesn’t consider the choice must be modified or revoked.
“The fee’s evaluation lined all related components of the privateness framework and of the broader institutional and authorized system … the fee additionally negotiated a major strengthening of privateness safeguards and particular person rights in Israel, developed to particularly apply to knowledge transferred from the EU and applied in Israeli legislation earlier than the beginning of the Israel-Gaza battle,” he mentioned.
“Israel has then prolonged the applying of those strengthened necessities additionally to knowledge that’s processed in a home context.”
McGrath added that the fee carefully displays the applying adequacy choices, and “has instruments to react if the safety afforded to knowledge transferred from the EU could be weakened, together with the chance to suggest the modification, suspension or repeal of the choice”.
No response
Regardless of its makes an attempt to lift issues, EDRi confirmed to Pc Weekly that, since sending the second open letter on 24 June 2025, there was no response from the fee.
The European Fee advised Pc Weekly it’s conscious of the EDRi’s open letters, however didn’t reply questions on why it had not responded, and claims it’s unwilling to uphold its personal requirements when politically inconvenient.
“Within the context of an adequacy discovering below the GDPR, the fee is required to have a look at the safety of information transferred from the EU by business entities to business entities in third international locations,” mentioned a fee spokesperson.
“As for any adequacy resolution, the fee carefully displays the applying of this adequacy resolution and has instruments to react if the safety afforded to knowledge transferred from the EU could be weakened,” they continued. “The fee evaluated in 2024 the adequacy resolution for Israel in keeping with the GDPR regulation, and concluded, based mostly on this evaluation, that the safety regime was sufficient.
“As is the case for all international locations with an adequacy resolution in place, we comply with the state of affairs as regards any modifications within the legislative framework that could be related for guaranteeing an sufficient stage of information safety and have instruments to react if the safety afforded to knowledge transferred from the EU could be weakened, together with the chance to suggest the modification, suspension or repeal of the choice.”
Based on the coalition, the fee’s “continued failure to have interaction” not solely undermines transparency, but additionally raises severe questions on its dedication to upholding the GDPR and basic human rights.
EDRi additionally famous how since its final letter, Israel’s navy actions in Gaza have solely intensified, with the United Nations (UN) Particular Committee confirming in November 2024 that its warfare strategies are “according to the traits of genocide.”
The group added that a wide range of applied sciences – together with synthetic intelligence (AI) methods and biometric databases – are used to “monitor, prohibit and categorise Palestinian people, typically in ways in which increase issues of racial profiling and automatic decision-making with out human oversight”.
Such digital instruments additionally contribute on to deadly navy operations, with AI-driven concentrating on methods that course of huge quantities of information getting used to generate goal lists for the Israeli Defence Drive (IDF).
In consequence, they are saying if the fee fails to reassess Israel’s adequacy, it is not going to solely violate its personal authorized requirements (significantly across the want for unbiased knowledge safety oversight, sufficient redress and efficient limitations on nationwide safety entry), but additionally danger “contributing to the entrenchment of an illegal state of affairs by way of the supply of digital infrastructure”.
The teams additionally highlighted how, as laid out in recitals to the GDPR, the fee should keep in mind how a specific third nation respects worldwide human rights norms and requirements.
“Stories point out that data-driven concentrating on, biometric surveillance and different digital applied sciences are getting used to facilitate human rights abuses and systematic oppression,” they mentioned. “These actions show how the unregulated move of information, facilitated partly by the EU’s adequacy resolution, contributes to ongoing violations.”
Talking with Pc Weekly, EDRi coverage advisor Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal mentioned it’s “deeply regarding” that the fee continues to disregard formal requests from civil society to reassess Israel’s adequacy standing, regardless of mounting proof.
“It has now been over a yr since we first raised the alarm, and regardless of escalating rights violations and a rising physique of worldwide authorized findings, together with from the [International Court of Justice] ICJ, the fee hasn’t responded to our calls for,” she mentioned.
“A number of members of the European Parliament lately echoed these issues and known as on the fee to behave. This isn’t merely a case of bureaucratic delay, however indicators a broader unwillingness to uphold the EU’s personal requirements after they grow to be politically inconvenient.”
Adequacy issues
Elaborating on their issues, the civil society teams highlighted how the renewal of Israel’s adequacy standing dangers breaching the EU’s worldwide obligations by enabling using private knowledge from the bloc to additional an “illegal occupation”.
They added that whereas the preliminary 2011 adequacy resolution for Israel explicitly limits the scope of the settlement to its 1967 borders, there isn’t any efficient mechanism to make sure this territorial restrict is noticed in observe.
Extra particularly, they highlighted how Israel’s management of the occupied Palestinian Territories and different annexed land is problematic when contemplating the operational realities of its governance and surveillance infrastructure.
“For instance, the headquarters of each the Israeli police and the Ministry of the Inside are positioned in occupied East Jerusalem, a territory not recognised by the EU as a part of Israel,” they mentioned.
“Equally, Israel’s nationwide surveillance command and management centre – which integrates facial recognition applied sciences, AI-based monitoring methods and real-time knowledge flows – relies within the Gilo settlement, which can be positioned in occupied West Financial institution.”
They added the truth that knowledge processing operations tied to legislation enforcement, biometric surveillance and nationwide safety are anchored in illegally annexed territory undermines claims the applying of Israeli legislation in these areas is legally impartial or administratively irrelevant.
“Within the absence of territorial safeguards, there’s a tangible danger that non-public knowledge transferred from the EU could also be accessed or processed inside these amenities, thereby implicating the EU within the extension of Israeli jurisdiction over occupied territory and violating the duty of non-recognition,” they mentioned.
Lack of safety
Different issues revolve round deficiencies in Israel’s personal knowledge safety framework, together with the dearth of safety for knowledge transferred from the EU when being accessed by intelligence companies, and authorized amendments to scale back the powers of the nation’s knowledge safety authority throughout election durations.
“The European Fee’s continued silence within the face of those pressing issues is untenable,” they wrote. “The absence of any significant response undermines belief within the EU’s dedication to basic rights and erodes confidence in its knowledge safety framework.
“We due to this fact anticipate a swift and complete response from the fee on this matter. Failing that, we’ll search treatment by way of the suitable oversight mechanisms, together with the European Ombudsman.”
Unbiased knowledge safety consultants have additionally raised issues concerning the EU-Israel knowledge adequacy resolution.
This contains Douwe Korff, an emeritus professor of worldwide legislation on the London Metropolitan College, who printed a authorized evaluation in April 2022 arguing that Israel’s knowledge safety legal guidelines don’t present “basically equal safety” to the GDPR, and Michael Veale, an affiliate professor at College School London, who mentioned on X in Could 2024 that the fee’s “re-affirmation of Israel’s knowledge safety ‘adequacy’ standing with little reporting or public evaluation wants severe scrutiny”.
