As the economy has become increasingly globalized, the incidence of cross-border commercial litigation and governmental investigations has also increased. As a consequence, clashes between U.S. discovery obligations and non-U.S. data privacy considerations, particularly in the Europe Union in light of the recently-effective General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), have become inevitable.

Differences in the scope of discovery between the U.S. and European legal systems, and differing approaches to the protection of personal information between the U.S. and Europe, can cause what may appear to be insoluble conflicts. The use of technology, and especially auto-classification solutions, can help improve the effectiveness and efficiency of both U.S. discovery (particularly electronic discovery) and European data privacy compliance.

Data Privacy Under GDPR and in the United States