Europe’s highest court will give its first indication this week in how it will rule in a landmark case that may determine how the data of EU citizens held by US firms is protected.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is to be asked to examine the law governing data protection following a student’s legal challenge over the rejection of his complaint about interference with personal privacy by the mass transfer of data by Facebook to the US intelligence services.

SIX more complaints about Facebook have been lodged with the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) over how the social network giant handles personal information.