‘Shut down your Facebook page to avoid US scrutiny’

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 Irish Data Protection Commissioner was in the dock over the refusal to investigate a complaint from an Austrian law student that the transfer of information by Facebook to the US was a breach of his privacy rights.

The commissioner described the legal arguments as “frivolous and vexatious” and said that since the transfer of data between the EU and the US was subject to a 1999 treaty known as Safe Harbour to which he was bound, he was not in a position to deal with the complaint.