In a response to the court decision, Schrems said the case was a victory for privacy rights and a blow to surveillance efforts.
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Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 of the extent to which USA intelligence services were able to access personal information held by companies such as Google and Facebook led the Commission to identify the shortcomings of Safe Harbor and to begin renegotiating the agreement with US authorities, Jourová said.
Meanwhile, the Irish data protection commissioner Helen Dixon has instructed her legal team “to take whatever actions are necessary to bring the case back as soon as practicable before the Irish high court”.
In case the Irish court decides that United States companies do ensure data protection from security authorities, there would be no more law suit.
Their ruling? “Legislation permitting the public authorities to have access on a generalized basis to the content of electronic communications must be regarded as compromising the essence of the fundamental right to respect for private life”, the court said, The Washington Times reported.
But the court said Tuesday individual European Union member countries are now required to investigate such complaints independently, and should have the right to ban US companies from transferring data in the future. The new ruling could make companies keep European users’ personal data in Europe, which would in turn require them to have enough data storage capacity there. Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs) are created to allow companies to transfer personal data from the European Economic Area (EEA) outside of the EEA in compliance with the 8th data protection principle and Article 25 of Directive 95/46/EC.
But does this ruling bode well at all for the music companies that want a totally different set of safe harbours revised and reduced?
The judgment followed a legal challenge by an Austrian privacy activist concerned that the social network Facebook might be sharing Europeans’ personal data with U.S. cyberspies.
“The immediate invalidation of transatlantic data flows will cause immediate harm to Europe’s data economy and will negatively impact countless consumers, employees and employers”, the organization said in a statement.
“We are deeply disappointed in today’s decision from the European Court of Justice”, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said in a communique hours after the court rule against the pact, known as the U.S-EU Safe Harbor Framework for data transfers.
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Since 2000, nations on both sides of the Atlantic have used a system established by the European Commission known as the “safe harbor” system to transfer sensitive data ranging from personnel records to online advertising information. They were then allowed to transfer European data to the US. The agreement allows such firms to self-certify that they are in fact adhering to the EU’s privacy protection requirements.
