Judicial review of Facebook PRISM case to be heard this week

A judicial review brought by an Austrian student over the transfer of personal information by Facebook is to go ahead in the High Court in Dublin this week.

Max Schrems of the Europe-V-Facebook.org group launched the action last year over what he claimed was the Data Protection Commissioner’s “refusal” to investigate Facebook over its involvement in the Prism national security electronic surveillance program operated by the National Security Agency in the US.

Mr Schrems, who is in his mid-20s and resident in Vienna, first filed a complaint against Facebook Ireland with the Data Protection Commissioner because of what he claimed was illegal data export to the US.