Facebook and other internet giants could be barred from sending European citizens' personal information to the United States after the EU's top court struck down a transatlantic data deal in the aftermath of the Edward Snowden NSA scandal.
The landmark verdict stemmed
from a case lodged by Austrian law student Max Schrems, who challenged
the 2000 Safe Harbour agreement between Washington and Brussels on the
grounds it did not properly protect European data.After declaring Safe Harbour "invalid", the European Court of Justice said authorities in Ireland, where Facebook has its European HQ and where Schrems lodged the case, now had to decide whether transfers of data to Facebook in the US should be suspended outright.
"The message is clear: mass surveillance is not possible in Europe [and is] against fundamental rights," Schrems said.
Thousands of companies rely on Safe Harbour to legally transfer to data storage servers huge amounts of information collected from users.
The European court of Justice ruling could force companies to keep European users' data in Europe.
