Yahoo Finance EU’s top court begins hearing landmark Facebook data case
The European Union’s top court will on Tuesday begin hearing a landmark privacy case concerning the legality of the transfer of personal data between Europe and the United States.
The case, the result of a referral by the Irish high court to the European Court of Justice, is likely to have significant implications for social media firms and other technology companies, which routinely export the data of their European users to the United States.
Facebook, in particular, has recently faced heavy criticism for how it handles consumer data, misinformation, and harmful content.
The original case, taken in Ireland by Austrian law student and privacy activist Max Schrems, asked the Irish data protection watchdog to block the data transfers, and argued that Facebook’s Dublin subsidiary was collecting more data than was permitted under Irish law.
The country’s high court chose to refer an aspect of the case, relating to the use of legal mechanisms called standard contractual clauses, to the European court.
The referral asks the Luxembourg-based court to determine whether the Privacy Shield framework negotiated between the EU and US, which allows companies to self-certify that they comply with EU privacy laws when they transfer data, “ensures an adequate level of protection.”
In theory, a ruling from the court could require companies to store European user data in Europe, without transferring it to the US.
Facebook, fearing the implications of an EU ruling on the matter, appealed against the high court’s decision to refer the case.
The Irish supreme court declined, however, to overturn the decision in a unanimous May ruling.
Schrems took the case in Ireland because Facebook’s European headquarters is based in the country.
The Irish Data Protection Commission, which is involved in the case, is considered to be Europe’s most important data watchdog — almost entirely because the European headquarters of several other social media companies are based in the country.
Part of Schrems’s argument hinges on the fact that US companies are required to make their data available to federal authorities, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
But European users are unable to challenge instances when this occurs, and Facebook has said that EU law does not apply to decisions concerning national security.
Schrems previously took a case about the predecessor to the Privacy Shield agreement, known as Safe Harbor. The European Court of Justice struck it down in 2015.
