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May 26 2016

APEC Examines CBRPR Program, Japan Now Fully on Board

The Data Privacy Subgroup has been hard at work at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Lima, Peru, examining the APEC Privacy Framework and its attendant Cross Border Privacy Rules. Endorsed by APEC in 2011, the CBPR program admittedly is still in its infancy. Just 14 companies have been through the process, only Japan, Canada, Mexico, and the United States currently participate, and there is relatively little name recognition for the program. One participant noted that a search of Singaporian media turned up just a single reference for CPBRs. Member economies heard an APEC-commissioned report from Information Integrity Solutions that explored the answer to this question. Part of it is purely efficiency. One company reported that the CBPR process helped considerably in its application for binding corporate rules in the EU, shortening the time for BCR completion to nine months and reducing costs by nearly 10%. Look for APEC to do much more to raise awareness of the program, with a CBPR conference this year in Vietnam, and potential conferences in Singapore and Australia before 2017.