Brussels, 20/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 20 October, Ireland's national personal data protection authority agreed to investigate the complaint of Austrian student Max Schrems, suspending de facto the transfer of personal data to the giant social networking website Facebook and to the USA where, Schrems fears, the intelligence agencies could have access to his data.
It is this refusal to investigate that had led to the case being taken to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and to the CJEU's judgment of 6 October (see EUROPE 11404) resulting in the so-called Safe Harbor arrangement being invalidated, which according to the CJEU does not provide sufficient guarantees on the adequate nature of the level of data protection provided by the USA. On 16 October, the Article 29 working group gave the European institutions three months to find solutions to this invalidation of Safe Harbor. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)