Safe Harbor Ruling May Impact Facebook

The Safe Harbor agreement between the U.S. and the European Commission may not be safe for much longer.

The Safe Harbor agreement between the U.S. and the European Commission may not be safe for much longer.

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that Safe Harbor—which was signed in 2010 to allow companies to send user data to the U.S. with no guarantees that the U.S. government would not access that data—was invalid.

The ruling came in a case filed by Austrian law student Max Schrems and his Europe Versus Facebook group last November.

Companies that rely on user data, notably Facebook, could be impacted if the court decides to suspend Safe Harbor following an investigation by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland (Facebook’s European headquarters is located in Dublin).

Schrems

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