SCCs (standard contractual clauses)

The European Commission's standard contracts that companies can use as a transfer mechanism when personal data is sent to countries outside the EU/EEA without an adequacy decision. The current 2021 SCCs come in modules covering different combinations of controllers and processors. The clauses must be signed unamended, and after Schrems II they must be supplemented with an assessment of the recipient country's laws and, where needed, extra safeguards such as encryption. In practice, SCCs are the most widely used transfer mechanism for SMEs.