E.U. Court of Justice rejects the EU-U.S. data transfer mechanism in the Facebook privacy case

On Thursday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected the validity of the data transfer mechanism used by the European Union and the United States which could facilitate the transfer of data from both countries. The data transfer tool permits the U.S. intelligence services to access such data for national security reasons.

“In respect of certain surveillance programmes, those provisions do not indicate any limitations on the power they confer to implement those programmes, or the existence of guarantees for potentially targeted non-U.S. persons,” the ECJ said.

The U.S. surveillance issue started in 2013 when privacy activist Max Schrems lodged a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) about the social networking website Facebook Inc. (F.B.).

The ECJ declared the Safe Harbour agreement between the E.U. and the U.S. as invalid as it did not sufficiently protect the data of European citizens.