Privacy activist Max Schrems sues Irish data watchdog for ‘letting Facebook off the hook’

Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems claimed the Irish regulators misled him on some facts of the landmark Facebook data case

Graham Doyle, the Irish Data Protection’s Deputy Commissioner, said: “As you can see Mr Schrems’ application to the Court this morning was made ex parte, meaning that any comments and arguments put forward were unchallenged.

"We will outline our position when we make our own submission to the Court.”

Mr Schrems was granted a leave for judicial review against the Irish DPC’s inquiry on Monday by the Irish High Court. 

Facebook has also challenged the IDPC’s inquiry in the courts, warning that it might be forced to pull out of Europe if it is unable to send information from its parent to its subsidiary. 

In an interview with the Telegraph, Mr Schrems said he could not work out if the IDPC was "just too stupid or just absolutely not willing to get it [improve data privacy law for Europeans] done".  

He now fears, after a shortlived spell of victory when Safe Harbour was invalidated, it will take many more years rather than months for the law to change to protect European citizens’ data as he must start a new legal battle. 

Safe Harbour was a pact signed in 2000 between the European Commission, the US and Switzerland, which allowed more than 5,000 American businesses operating in Europe to bypass rules on moving data abroad under the presumption the western countries could presume a satisfactory level of data protection. 

It was invalidated by Europe’s top court in 2015 after Mr Schrems, then a 28-year-old Austrian law student, won a case against Facebook.

In 2013 Mr Schrems filed a complaint against Facebook for exposing his personal data to US intelligence, following claims made in Wikileaks that the National Security Agency had tapped Facebook’s servers. 

The Privacy Shield was drawn up to replace the Safe Harbour, but Mr Schrems again argued that US companies could not adequately protect European’s data. Europe’s highest court agreed and ruled in July this year that it had been invalidated.