21/10/2016
Facebook joins Google and Microsoft in its adoption of the controversial Privacy Shield treaty, which allows personal information to be transferred by United States (“US”) technology companies from the European Union (“EU”) overseas to the US. This decision is likely to come under significant scrutiny after the previous framework governing such transfers, Safe Harbor, was declared “invalid” by the European Court of Justice in October 2015.
The EU has strict regulations in place in order to regulate the manner in which personal information is processed and transferred both within and outside of its Member States. Following the abolition of the Safe Harbor treaty, businesses were only able to transfer personal data to the US via complicated secondary legal measures, until the introduction of the Privacy Shield.
Whilst only a couple of elements of the social media website will benefit from the treaty, being selected advertising data and ‘Workplace’ (a version of Facebook to be used as a corporate communications tool by businesses and other organisations), Facebook critics will undoubtedly be closely analysing the adoption of the Privacy Shield data treaty which could potentially act as a catalyst for fresh legal action by privacy campaigners.
Memery Crystal has previously considered the issues relating to the Privacy Shield, which acts as a replacement to Safe Harbor. It will certainly be interesting to observe the increasing use of the Privacy Shield by Facebook and larger organisations and how the public respond.
For further information, please contact a member of our Commercial, Media and Technology team.
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