Did Facebook (FB)
illegally let the U.S. National Security Agency spy on its European
users? That question is to be considered by the European Union’s highest
court, after an Irish judge questioned whether data that the social
network transferred from Europe to its U.S. servers might have fallen
into the hands of the spy agency.
Privacy advocates, led by an Austrian law student named Max Schrems, contend that Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s Prism program showed that the agency conducted “mass and largely unsupervised surveillance” of Facebook users’ data.
Schrems took Ireland’s national data regulator to court after it refused to consider his complaint and dismissed his arguments as “frivolous and vexatious.” But Judge Hogan said Snowden’s disclosures had “exposed gaping holes in contemporary U.S. data protection practice” that could undermine the U.S.-EU agreement.
He asked the European court to determine whether an investigation of Facebook’s data transfers was warranted in light of the disclosures. The case was filed in Ireland because Facebook’s European operations are headquartered there.
Read more: Europe's High Court Will Look at Facebook's Possible Role in NSA Spying - Businessweek