Facebook tries to prevent EU court from examining data transfers
Facebook has asked that the case initiated by Max Schrems about the legal sustainability of the transfer of user data from the EU to the United States not yet be referred to the European Court of Justice.
Facebook had until Monday to appeal or request a postponement, and did the latter at the last minute, according to Reuters. The company ultimately tries to prevent the EU court from considering the legal sustainability of transferring data from EU citizens to the United States. If the Court of Justice were to look into this, these data transfers could possibly be cut, which would be a big blow for Facebook.
A Facebook lawyer has asked whether the Irish High Court referral could be postponed so that Ireland’s supreme court, the Supreme Court, can rule on whether it would accept an appeal against the referrals. According to a lawyer for the Irish privacy watchdog, no such appeal has been allowed in the country before and it only delays answering questions that he believes are of great importance for the entire European Union.
This includes the question of whether the data is adequately protected against surveillance by US intelligence services. It also revolves around the question of whether the data transfers are in line with European privacy regulations, and whether American law offers enough guarantees for EU citizens to be able to do something against an invasion of their privacy by American intelligence services.
The data transfers take place on the basis of, among other things, model agreements, or standard contractual clauses, with which American companies can store data of EU citizens in the US. This practice has been approved by the EU, but is now the subject of an ongoing procedure.
Austrian Max Schrems has previously ended the Safe Harbor arrangement through the courts, which was replaced by the Privacy Shield in 2016. This allows companies to store personal data of European citizens in the US after they have gone through a certification process. There is a lot of criticism about this, just like the model contracts. The use of model contracts has partly become redundant due to Privacy Shield, but there are still companies that use them. The present case is about the model contracts and not about Privacy Shield, although a negative opinion about the model contracts can also have consequences for Privacy Shield.