High Court freezes probe into Facebook data flow to US
IRELAND’S High Court has temporarily frozen a probe by Facebook’s lead European Union regulator that threatened to halt the US social media giant’s transatlantic data flows, a court spokesman said.
Late last month the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) informed Facebook Ireland, which is the EU HQ of Facebook and Instagram platforms, that it has made a preliminary draft decision that personal data should not be transferred to the US parent Facebook Inc.
Facebook Ireland, represented in court by Declan McGrath SC and Francis Keiran Bl, then sought to have that decision quashed.
Facebook had sought a judicial review of the Irish Data Protection Commission’s preliminary decision that the mechanism it used to transfer data from the European Union to the US ‘cannot in practice be used’.
‘Leave to take the Judicial Review was granted,’ the court spokesman said, adding that a stay was put on Data Protection Commission order that threatened to block the data flows. No date has yet been set for the matter to return to the court.
A Facebook spokeswoman welcomed the court decision. ‘Businesses need clear, global rules, underpinned by the strong rule of law, to protect transatlantic data flows over the long term,’ she said.
In seeking to derail the Irish regulator’s decision, Facebook has said the mechanism in question, the Standard Contractual Clause (SCC), had been deemed valid by the EU Court of Justice in July.
However, the July ruling said that under the SCC, privacy watchdogs must suspend or prohibit transfers outside the EU if data protection in other countries cannot be assured.
The transatlantic argument stems from EU concerns that the surveillance regime in the US may not respect the privacy rights of EU citizens when their personal data is sent to the US for commercial use.
SCCs are used by thousands of companies to transfer Europeans’ data around the world and a ban could cause widespread disruption to transatlantic data services.
Max Schrems, the data privacy activist who is a party in the case, said that Facebook had argued it would be unfair that the Irish regulator was only targeting Facebook and not other tech companies.
A Data Protection Commission spokesman declined to comment.