Joint Declaration by Mr. Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, and Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission

"At the G7 Ise Shima Summit we reaffirmed that the free flow of information is a fundamental principle to promote the global economy and development, and ensures a fair and equal access to the cyberspace for all actors of digital economy.

We stress the importance of ensuring a high level of privacy and security of personal data as a fundamental right and as a central factor of consumer trust in the digital economy, which also further facilitates mutual data flows, leading to the development of digital economy. With the recent reforms of their respective privacy legislation: the entry into force of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on 24 May 2016, which will apply from 25 May 2018, and of the Japanese Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) on 30 May 2017, the EU and Japan have further increased the convergence between their two systems, which rest notably on an overarching privacy law, a core set of individual rights and enforcement by independent supervisory authorities. This offers new opportunities to facilitate data exchanges, including through a simultaneous finding of an adequate level of protection by both sides. With this in mind, we reaffirm our commitment to further intensify our efforts achieving this by goal by early 2018."

STATEMENT/17/1917