Legal implications after Schrems case: are we trading fundamental rights?

The world is slowly turning into a global village and borders that once stood between cultures now serve as bridges for the exchange of information. In Schrems, the Court of Justice invalidated the Safe Harbor agreement, which recognized the standards of transferring data through a self-certification system of United States companies. In this landmark ruling, the European Union (EU) judiciary introduced a strict scrutiny test for EU legislative acts that interfere seriously with important rights protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, in this case, the rights to privacy and data protection. This article presents and analyses the judgment, discussing its practical implications, and the substantive and procedural constraints that it imposes on EU and national data retention schemes. It concludes by reflecting on the ruling’s impact on European integration and data-related policies.