Data privacy ruling to have major impact

A landmark European privacy ruling will have significant repercussions for Facebook, the EU, and the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, a digital rights group has claimed.

The European Court of Justice’s advocate general yesterday said the “mass, indiscriminate” US surveillance of citizens’ data, as revealed by Edward Snowden, had raised serious concerns about the protection of personal information that was being transferred from Europe to the US.

If confirmed by the ECJ’s judges, AG Yves Bot’s recommendation will mean that authorities in EU states will be free to suspend the transfer of information to the US if there are data protection concerns.