Facebook's data transfers from EU to US to be probed
- 9 years ago
Ireland's High Court on Tuesday ordered an investigation into Facebook's transfer of European Union users' data to the United States to make sure personal privacy was properly protected from US government surveillance.
The court told the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to launch a probe following a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice two weeks ago that struck down the Safe Harbour agreement that had allowed the free transfer of data between the European Union and the United States.
Both the ECJ decision and Tuesday's ruling were the result of a challenge by Austrian law student Max Schrems, lodged after revelations in 2013 of the US government's Prism programme, which allowed authorities to harvest private information directly from big tech firms such as Facebook and Google.
Under EU data protection law, companies cannot transfer EU citizens' personal data to countries outside the bloc deemed to have insufficient privacy safeguards.
The court told the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to launch a probe following a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice two weeks ago that struck down the Safe Harbour agreement that had allowed the free transfer of data between the European Union and the United States.
Both the ECJ decision and Tuesday's ruling were the result of a challenge by Austrian law student Max Schrems, lodged after revelations in 2013 of the US government's Prism programme, which allowed authorities to harvest private information directly from big tech firms such as Facebook and Google.
Under EU data protection law, companies cannot transfer EU citizens' personal data to countries outside the bloc deemed to have insufficient privacy safeguards.