Standard Contractual Clauses

Standard Contractual Clauses, commonly abbreviated as SCCs, are pre-approved legal contract templates that organizations use to ensure that international transfers of personal data comply with data protection regulations, most notably the European Union's GDPR, when data is being transferred to a country that may not otherwise be recognized as offering an adequate level of data protection. SCCs provide a standardized legal mechanism that both parties to a data transfer can adopt to satisfy applicable regulatory requirements. These clauses typically outline specific obligations for both the party sending the data and the party receiving it, including commitments around data security measures, how the data can be used, and what rights individuals retain over their own information even after it has been transferred internationally. Using SCCs allows companies to lawfully transfer data, such as employee records, between entities in different countries without needing to rely on other, sometimes more complex, legal mechanisms. For companies with international operations, SCCs are commonly incorporated into agreements with vendors, service providers, or even between different entities within the same corporate group, whenever personal data needs to move across borders in a way that would otherwise raise data protection compliance concerns under applicable privacy law.