The EU court blocks the agreement with the US on the exchange of data. Slap at Facebook – Il Sole 24 Ore

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This article was published October 6, 2015 at 11:02.
The last change is the October 6, 2015 at 13:31.

LUXEMBOURG – The European judiciary has undermined the agreements between the United States and the European Union in the management Internet Privacy, defining illegal the agreement 15 years ago, Safe Harbour, which regulates the transfer of data on both sides of the Atlantic. The ruling, which follows by a few days the view of Advocate General Yves Bot, would allow the blocking of the transfer of personal data of users of Facebook and other social networks.

“This decision is a blow to the mass surveillance carried out by the United States that relies mainly on private partners,” he said in a statement Max Schrems. The latter, an Austrian jurist, was the origin of the application submitted to the Irish authorities in 2011, two years before the outbreak of Datagate, the story of illegal wiretapping by US intelligence. Schrems objected in court to the transfer of your personal data on the central computers of Facebook in the United States, explaining that the American authorities do not offer sufficient guarantees.

In 2000, the European Commission had considered the Safe Harbour agreement sufficiently secure. “The existence of a decision of the Commission that a third country ensures an adequate level of protection on personal data transferred abroad (…) can not reduce the powers enjoyed by the national supervisory authorities,” said the Court European Justice in a statement. The court considered “invalid” the decision of the Community executive.
In this context, the European Court of Justice, based in Luxembourg, has stated that the Irish authorities, who had used the same Schrems, They have every right to fully evaluate American guarantees in transfers of personal data across the Atlantic. Dutch Liberal MEP Sophie In’t Veld congratulated. From Strasbourg, where the European Parliament is in session, spoke of “nail in the coffin of the Safe Harbour”.

“It is imperative – says a Facebook spokesperson in a press release – that EU governments European and US ensure to continue to provide reliable methods for the legal transfer of data and to resolve any matters relating to national security. ” Facebook has also denied having committed offenses and stressed that “under discussion is one of the mechanisms that the European law provides to allow the transatlantic transfer of data.”

The European verdict comes as many US companies, including Google and Yahoo !, are grappling with European concerns about the way in which privacy is protected in the United States. Moreover, the general atmosphere between the two sides of the Atlantic is difficult, marked by commercial negotiations for a free trade agreement that are slow, misunderstandings in international politics, as well as the interception of American classa European policy that caused uproar.

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