Anybody who does not want their Facebook information collected by US intelligence agencies should shut down their page. Such was the evidence given to the European Court of Justice.

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.

The data protection commissioner was wrong to refuse to investigate a complaint that the Irish arm of Facebook could not permit the mass transfer of personal data to US intelligence services, it has been claimed.

The fight against terrorism can never justify secret and illegal mass surveillance, the European Parliament has said, demanding that a range of agreements with the US be scrapped or put on hold.