Europe's top court to review personal data exchange between EU and US

The Irish High Court has referred to a 14-year-old agreement governing the exchange of personal data between the European Union and the US to the EU’s top court.

The referral came in a case over whether the Irish Data Protection Commissioner was right to refuse to investigate Facebook’s alleged involvement with the US government surveillance program Prism.

Europe-v-Facebook, an Austrian group representing some Facebook users, filed a complaint with the Irish DPC over Facebook’s data exportation regime in June 2013. It argued that when Facebook collects user data and exports it to the US it is giving the US National Security Agency (NSA) the opportunity to use the data for massive surveillance of personal information without probable cause -- and by doing so, Facebook is violating European laws. European laws prohibit the transfer of personal data to non-EU countries that do not meet the EU’s standards for data protection.