Ireland’s data control can recapitulate an inquiry that may trigger a prohibition on Facebook’s transatlantic information transfers, the High Court directed on Friday, boosting the possibility of a stoppage that the company cautions would have a disastrous influence on its business. The case arises from EU anxieties that US government monitoring may not regard the privacy claims of EU citizens when their data is sent to the United States for commercial application.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), Facebook‘s head regulator in the European Union, started a probe in August and declared a provisional order that the central mechanism Facebook applies to transport EU user data to the United States “cannot in practice be used”. Facebook had disputed both the analysis and the Preliminary Draft Decision (PDD), stating they cautioned “devastating” and “irreversible” outcomes for its business, which relies on preparing user data to attend targeted online advertisements.
The High Court denied the challenge on Friday. “I refuse all of the reliefs sought by FBI (Facebook Ireland) and dismiss the claims made by it in the proceedings,” Justice David Barniville said in a judgment that ran to nearly 200 pages. “FBI has not established any basis for impugning the DPC decision or the PDD or the procedures for the inquiry adopted by the DPC,” the judgment said.
While the determination does not trigger an instant pause to data streams, Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who overpowered the Irish data control to operate in a range of legal actions over the past eight years, said he assumed the judgment executed it necessary. “After eight years, the DPC is now required to stop Facebook’s EU-U.S. data transfers, likely before summer,” he said. A Facebook spokesman said the company viewed ahead to protecting its assent with EU data laws as the Irish regulator’s transient order “could be damaging not only to Facebook but also to users and other businesses”.
If the Irish data index emphasizes the provisional form, it would effectively halt the exempt way companies in the United States have to personal data from Europe and put them on the same basis as companies in other countries outside the bloc. The device being disputed by the Irish regulator, the Standard Contractual Clause (SCC), was considered proven by the European Court of Justice in a July decision. But the Court of Justice also ordered that, under SCCs, privacy watchdogs must interrupt or ban transfers outside the EU if data protection in other nations cannot be guaranteed.
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In December, a lawyer for Facebook told the High Court that the Irish regulator’s draft determination, if achieved, “would have devastating consequences” for Facebook’s business, affecting Facebook’s 410 million live users in Europe, hit political groups, and impair freedom of speech. In February, Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said companies more broadly may encounter huge disturbance to transatlantic data streams as a result of the European Court of Justice decision. Dixon’s office embraced the judgment on Friday but refused additional remark.
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