Facebook’s data transfers from EU to US are being reviewed by EU Court EU
Ireland’s Supreme Court has rejected Facebook’s request not to refer the pending data transfer case to the Court of Justice. With this, the EU Court will consider the lawfulness of the exchange of data from EU citizens to the US.
Reuters reports that the Irish Supreme Court has rejected Facebook’s request and that the case will go to trial on July 9 at the European Court of Justice. The judges of the highest EU Court will then consider the legal sustainability of the data transfer deals, whereby personal data of EU citizens is transferred to the US and vice versa.
The case revolves around the so-called model agreements, or standard contractual clauses. That is an instrument approved by the EU; they are basically individual contracts that allow US companies to transfer data from EU citizens to the US for storage. If this instrument is no longer acceptable after a possible negative judgment by the Court of Justice, this could have the necessary consequences for providers of cloud services, such as Amazon with AWS. Quite a few companies have agreed these clauses with cloud providers, so that services such as AWS or Azure are allowed to process personal data. If that were to be the case, many companies would have to find an alternative provider to host their infrastructure.
The case is in Ireland, because Facebook’s headquarters outside the US is in Ireland. Thus, the Irish privacy watchdog DPA filed a case. In this context, it also indirectly concerns the Privacy Shield agreement. The EU Court declared Safe Harbor invalid two years ago after a lawsuit brought by Austrian Max Schrems. Privacy Shield became the successor to Safe Harbor and the case referred to the EU Court does not directly concern Privacy Shield, but a negative opinion about the model agreements can also have consequences for Privacy Shield. Companies are making less and less use of Privacy Shield and the certification process, because the Safe Harbor invalidation statement shows that this method can disappear in one go.
The Supreme Court’s rejection comes as no surprise, as the lower Irish High Court previously rejected Facebook’s request as well. The hearing judge then indicated that the refusal is justified, so that the Court of Justice can look at it as soon as possible. According to the judge, potentially millions of EU citizens have been seriously harmed in their interests by the delay. She felt that Facebook is deliberately trying to delay the matter.