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New Standard Contractual Clauses now part of the AWS GDPR Data Processing Addendum for customers

Today, we’re happy to announce an update to our online AWS GDPR Data Processing Addendum (AWS GDPR DPA) and our online Service Terms to include the new Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) that the European Commission (EC) adopted in June 2021. The EC-approved SCCs give our customers the ability to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when they transfer personal data subject to GDPR to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA) that haven’t received an EC adequacy decision (third countries). The new SCCs are now better adapted to how our customers operate their applications or run their workloads in the cloud, because they cover different transfer scenarios, and also provide enhanced safeguards for data transfers.

Achieving compliance with GDPR is critical for hundreds of thousands of AWS customers and AWS. The new SCCs allow all AWS customers that are controllers or processors under GDPR to continue to transfer personal data from their AWS accounts in compliance with GDPR. As part of the online Service Terms, the new SCCs will apply automatically whenever an AWS customer uses AWS services to transfer customer data to third countries.

The updated AWS GDPR DPA incorporating the new SCCs supplements our announcement in February 2021 of strengthened commitments to protect customer data, such as challenging law enforcement requests that conflict with EU law. We have also published the blog post How AWS is helping EU customers navigate the new normal for data protection, and the whitepaper Navigating Compliance with EU Data Transfer Requirements to help AWS customers conduct their data transfer assessments and comply with GDPR, the Schrems II ruling, and the recommendations issued by the European Data Protection Board. AWS is constantly working to ensure that our customers can enjoy the benefits of AWS everywhere they operate, and we welcome the new SCCs because they enable our customers to continue using AWS services in compliance with GDPR. If you have questions or need more information, visit our EU Data Protection page and our GDPR Center.

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Author

Stéphane Ducable

Stéphane is Vice President of Public Policy – EMEA at AWS. He is focused on increasing awareness of the benefits of adopting cloud computing technology across the EMEA region.