Facebook, like other tech giants, have been reeling from the effects of the Snowden revelations in 2013. The companies have been trying to assure their users or customers that their products are secure and that they don’t willingly turn over data to the U.S. government.
Ireland will investigate a complaint about U.S. spies potentially accessing Facebook Inc. users’ private details after the European Union’s highest court overturned a trans-Atlantic pact that allowed the free flow of such data 15 years ago.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner agreed to probe the complaint by Austrian law student Max Schrems following the landmark Oct. 6 ruling by the EU Court of Justice, Paul Anthony McDermott, a lawyer for the authority, said in a Dublin court on Tuesday. The Irish data watchdog’s initial refusal to examine the complaint triggered the EU court case, which led to the banning of the so-called safe-harbor accord, struck between the EU and U.S. in 2000.
That original decision “must now fall” and the Irish regulator “must investigate,” McDermott said. He said the probe wouldn’t be delayed.
The EU’s top court based in Luxembourg focused on the validity of the data-sharing accord in the light of revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about U.S. government surveillance activities and mass data collection. Last year, an Irish judge asked the top EU court to decide on key points in the Schrems case — seeking guidance on whether the safe harbor still protects privacy and whether national regulators have the power to suspend illegal data flows from the EU to the U.S.
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