Safe Harbor and data exchange under legal attack in EU

Everyone, from FB to G and webmasters will be affected

[tangor]

The top advisor to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has said the current agreement between the EU and US is not worth the paper it’s written on .

Advocate General Yves Bot’s opinion on the so-called Facebook vs Europe case is not legally binding, but the court’s final ruling almost always follows his advice.

The case was brought by “Angry Austrian” Max Schrems who complained to the Irish Data Commissioner that Facebook had passed his personal data on to the US National Security Agency in breach of his data protection rights. The Irish data protection authorities (DPA) refused to investigate on the grounds that Facebook is signed up to the so-called safe harbour agreement.

Naturally the business community is extremely worried. “We are concerned about the potential disruption to international data flows if the Court follows today’s Opinion,” said John Higgins, Director General of DigitalEurope. “In addition to the disruption a Court ruling would have on international data flows, it would also frustrate the creation of the Digital Single Market in Europe because it would fragment Europe’s approach to data flows out of the EU,” said Higgins

[theregister.co.uk...]

Fair Harbor agreements have been a necessary glue holding harmless many carriers, ISPs and websites. Any change in those agreements could have significant effects on the web, and all who use it.

[engine]

Yes, this is a landmark case, whether it is ruled one way or the other.
[webmasterworld.com...]

There's a similar case going on with Microsoft's data, too. Microsoft Joined By Amazon, Apple, and Other Tech Companies and trade bodies, to Fight US Government Over Overseas Search Warrants [webmasterworld.com]

[Leosghost]

This has been "rolling" for a while now..which is why I moved all my hosting that deals with EU customers out of the U.S.A a couple of years ago only sites specifically targeted at the U.S.A were left on U.S.A hosting..it is also ( in the light of how much data Win10 "phones home", even when "locked down") why EU businesses are ill advised to use, doing so already conflicts with EU data laws ..

The presence on many EU owned sites of trackers that follow users from site to site is also in breach of current EU data laws in the opinion of many lawyers, hence my comment yesterday in another thread about the facebook button ( which tracks individuals on every site that they visit, in order to profile their browsing ) on the official website of the President of France...

I would strongly suggest ( as is frequently the case with articles on el reg ) that people read the comments there on this article, in particular the comment , near the start of them, by Nick Ryan, which is a very accurate assessment of how "safe harbour" actually "works" at the moment, and is how it has always "worked"..