Facebook EU Data Transfers Under Fire

The invalidation of a U.S.-EU "safe harbor" data transfer deal is already having repercussions, as the Irish Data Protection Commission this week said it will investigate Facebook's data practices.

The commission will look into whether Facebook violates the privacy rights of its European users by sending their data to servers housed in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported.

The probe was spearheaded by privacy advocate Max Schrems, who battled Facebook for years on this issue. The commission initially declined to examine Schrems's complaint because of the "safe harbor" deal, but an Irish court has now ordered it to proceed.

The Safe Harbor deal ensured that 4,000-plus European and American tech and non-tech businesses would treat data moving between countries with the same privacy protections as inside the region. Earlier this month, however, the Court of Justice declared that deal invalid.

Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said her office "will now proceed to investigate the substance of the complaint with all due diligence."

Schrems has been on Facebook's case since 2011, when he asked the company to turn over the information it stored about his online activity. Shocked to find out just how much data that included, Schrems founded Europe-v-Facebook.org, and filed 22 separate complaints about the company with the Irish DPC.

He then met with Facebook officials in early 2012 to discuss his quest to find out what type of user data the site stores; he said at the time that Facebook agreed to release more use data.

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In a statement, the social network reiterated that it does not give the U.S. government direct access to its servers. "We will respond to inquiries from the Irish Data Protection Commission as they examine the protections for the transfer of personal data under applicable law," a spokesman told PCMag.

Since the repeal of the Safe Harbor Deal, global organizations like Facebook must now rethink how to collect, manage, and analyze online information for millions of users in the EU's 28 member states. Set up 15 years ago to help companies conduct business, the agreement came under fire following the mass surveillance revelations in the Snowden documents. European watchdogs also want to cut ties because U.S. privacy protections are not as strong as they are in the EU.