On May 1, 2009, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) authorized the transfer of personal information from the UK by the Accenture and Atmel groups of companies to other entities within their own corporate groups. In each case, the ICO granted authorization for the data transfers based on the strict rules and procedures put in place by the binding corporate rules (BCRs), which provide adequate levels of protection for individuals’ rights in relation to the processing of personal data across the groups. This is the first set of BCRs to be approved by a European DPA relying on the mutual recognition procedure. The ICO’s press release is available here.