Third Country

Third country - A third country is a country which has not adopted a national law for the implementation of Directive 95/46/EC - as opposed to the 27 Member States of the EU and the three European Economic Area (EEA) countries Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland.

Third countries need to ensure an adequate level of protection for personal data in order to enable transfers of personal data from the EU and EEA Member States to them.

The Commission has so far recognized Switzerland, Canada, Argentina, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey and the US Department of Commerce's Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, as providing adequate protection.

The effect of such a decision is that personal data can flow from the EU and EEA Member States to that third country (within the limit of the material scope as described by each Decision) without any further safeguards.

[Category=Geospatial ]

European Data Protection Supervisor, 02 August 2011 10:59:29  http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/edps/cache/off/EDPS/Dataprotection/Glossary