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Another legal challenge to a\u00a0data transfer authorization mechanism relied upon by Facebook and thousands of other companies to legally move\u00a0user data\u00a0from the European Union to\u00a0the U.S. for processing has kicked off in the Irish High Court today.<\/p>\n
The hearing is expected\u00a0to last three weeks, and is taking place in Ireland because Facebook\u2019s European headquarters are located in the country.<\/p>\n
Last May<\/a> the Irish\u00a0data protection commissioner said it was referring standard contractual clauses (SCCs) \u2014 sometimes referred to as\u00a0\u201cmodel contract clauses\u201d \u2014 to Ireland\u2019s High Court to seek a referral to\u00a0Europe\u2019s top court, the CJEU, for a definitive ruling on the legality of the mechanism.<\/p>\n In a recent\u00a0memo<\/a>\u00a0about the\u00a0action, the Irish DPA writes on its website:<\/p>\n The DPC [data protection commissioner] is now asking the High Court to make a reference to the CJEU in relation to the validity of the SCCs mechanism. This step has been taken because the DPC has concerns as to the validity of the SCCs when considered in the light of a number of factors, to include Articles 7, 8 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and the CJEU\u2019s judgment in the first Schrems case. The DPC considers that the concerns she holds, and the concerns expressed by Mr Schrems in a complaint filed with the DPC\u2019s office, are well-founded.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Covering the\u00a0opening of the hearing today,\u00a0Reuters<\/a>\u00a0reports that the lawyer for Commissioner Helen Dixon argued the court should refer the case to the CJEU if \u201cyou share her doubts.\u201d \u201cThe Commissioner\u2019s concern is simply to get it right, not to advocate for any particular result,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n In a statement provided to TechCrunch, a Facebook spokesperson said: \u201cStandard Contract Clauses provide critical safeguards, protecting EU citizens data\u2019 in the US and around the world, and are used by thousands of companies to do business. Facebook firmly believes that SCCs are integral to businesses of all sizes, and upholding them\u00a0is critical to ensuring the economy can continue to grow without disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n The company\u00a0will be giving evidence as part of the hearing \u2014 and was named in the original and updated complaints to the Irish DPA, the latter having resulted in today\u2019s\u00a0hearing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile there is no immediate impact for people or businesses who use our services, we are pleased to have the opportunity to provide input in this process,\u201d the Facebook spokesperson added. \u201cIt is essential that the court has the opportunity to consider the full facts before it makes any decision that may impact the European economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Back in June<\/a>, the U.S. government asked, and was granted, permission to be joined as an amicus in the case \u2014 highlighting the\u00a0high-level importance being attached to trying to prevent another\u00a0data transfer\u00a0challenge ending up at\u00a0the CJEU, where judges would again be testing the legal robustness of\u00a0a mechanism used to\u00a0smooth data flows between\u00a0Europe and the U.S. for e-commerce purposes.<\/p>\n In October 2015, the court caused a big upheaval for businesses by\u00a0invalidating a prior EU-U.S. data flow arrangement that had been operational\u00a0for 15 years.<\/p>\n Model contract clauses are one of the alternative data transfer mechanisms that thousands of companies fell back on when that\u00a0prior arrangement, Safe Harbor, was struck down<\/a>. The\u00a0challenge had been initiated\u00a0by European privacy campaigner Max Schrems, armed with intel from the 2013 Snowden disclosures about U.S. government surveillance programs. After the CJEU\u2019s Safe Harbor ruling, Schrems resubmitted his complaint to the Irish DPA to push for a similar decision to invalidate\u00a0SCCs.<\/p>\n The crux of the legal question\u00a0remains\u00a0whether\u00a0U.S. surveillance activity can be made compatible with European privacy law. And since the fall of Safe Harbor, the legality of alternative mechanisms, including\u00a0model contracts, has been questioned<\/a>, even as the European Commission and the U.S. went on to conclude negotiations and seal\u00a0a replacement deal, called Privacy Shield<\/a>.<\/p>\n That mechanism launched last August<\/a>,\u00a0but is now facing at least one\u00a0legal challenge<\/a>. It\u2019s also due its first annual review this summer, with signs of some early\u00a0discontent<\/a> on the European side \u2014 even before you factor in the question of\u00a0how compatible the new Trump administration\u2019s priorities will be<\/a>\u00a0with subtle arrangements seeking to legally bridge\u00a0gaps\u00a0in two distinct\u00a0data protection regimes.<\/p>\n The new U.S. president signing an executive order at the end of last month to\u00a0strip certain privacy rights from non-citizens\/non-residents certainly has terrible optics from a European perspective. Even if that particular Trump pen stroke\u00a0did not invalidate Privacy Shield, which relies on a different U.S. law to underpin\u00a0its promise of \u201cessential equivalence\u201d of\u00a0privacy\u00a0protections. (Though how the ongoing\u00a0combination of Trump plus\u00a0Privacy Shield plays out over the longer run remains an open question<\/a>.)<\/p>\n TechCrunch understands that a key\u00a0concern for the Irish DPA over model contract clauses is\u00a0a structural issue pertaining to\u00a0the lack of redress facilities for European citizens wanting to pursue claims in the U.S. against companies they believe have breached\u00a0their European\u00a0rights.<\/p>\n Privacy Shield does offer a redress path for EU citizens, enabled by the U.S. signing the Judicial Redress Act into law and extending its designation to countries in the EU \u2014 although critics<\/a> argue the redress path may be\u00a0too complex for European consumers to be effective.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Featured Image: Bryce Durbin<\/small><\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/mdbdE6qVqsc\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another legal challenge to a\u00a0data transfer authorization mechanism relied upon by Facebook and thousands of other companies to legally move\u00a0user data\u00a0from the European Union to\u00a0the U.S. for processing has kicked <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-3349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n