Brussels, 09/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - A group of 25,000 users who allege that Facebook used their personal data illegally lodged a class action against the social networking site with the civil court in Vienna on Thursday, AFP reports. Activist Max Schrems formally filed the complaint.
On 24 March, the European Court of Justice held its first hearing on the complaint lodged by the 27-yeart-old Austrian activist against a decision by the Irish data protection regulator also involving Facebook.
The case is one of the biggest yet against the American social networking site. It was launched in August by users in several countries of Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia. Some 55,000 other people have already indicated that they intend to join in the action. Each of the first 25,000 complainants is seeking €500 from Facebook, which they allege was involved in Prism, the US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programme. “We demand that Facebook end mass surveillance, put in place a comprehensible protection of privacy policy and cease gathering the personal data of people who do not even have Facebook accounts”, Schrems told AFP.
Lawyers for Facebook argue that “there is no legal basis in Austria for an American-style class action”, AFP reports. The reform of European data protection rules currently underway is precisely seeking to come to a consistent decision for all European users without their having to go to the country where the accused company is headquartered and allowing them merely to remain in contact with their national data protection authority. This is the whole focus of the discussions on the so-called “one-stop-shop”. (Solenn Paulic)