A High Court judge will rule later on exactly what questions and information she should put before the Court of Justice of the EU for its consideration of the validity or otherwise of European Commission decisions approving EU-US data transfer channels. Ms Justice Caroline Costello has heard four days of submissions from the Data Protection Commissioner, Facebook, Austrian lawyer Max Schrems, the US government and others concerning what should be before the CJEU. The issues she must decide include what prominence should be given to articles 25 and 26 of the data protection directive. Facebook argued US law and various measures including the 2016 Privacy Shield data transfer agreement between the European Commission and US afford adequate protection for data privacy rights of EU citizens. Her judgment was primarily concerned with the EC data protection directive and its focus on whether third-country protections for EU citizens’ data privacy rights are “adequate”.

Source: The Irish Times January 19, 2018 15:33 UTC