The Irish Data Protection Commissioner has agreed to investigate allegations that Facebook exposes its users’ personal data to mass snooping by U.S. intelligence services, following a ruling of the High Court of Ireland on Tuesday.

Austrian Facebook user Maximilian Schrems filed a complaint with the DPC in 2013, in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency’s PRISM surveillance system.

The DPC initially dismissed the complaint as “frivolous,” a decision Schrems went on to challenge in the Irish high court.

Facebook, the DPC said in 2013, complied with the terms of the so-called Safe Harbor agreement, under which businesses certify that they respect EU data protection legislation when processing data in the U.S., and since that agreement had been made by the European Commission under the terms of the EU directive that also informed Irish law on the matter, there was nothing for the DPC to investigate.

Schrems asked the Irish high court for a judicial review of the DPC’s decision, and the court in turn asked the European Union’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the EU, to rule on whether national data protection authorities had the power to challenge the European Commission’s decision that the Safe Harbor agreement provided sufficient protection under EU law.

Read the Full Article: Source – PC World
Browsing Privacy: (PC World) – Irish privacy watchdog to investigate Facebook over spying allegations

source not found