EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE’S OPINION ABOUT FACEBOOK

14.01.2021

The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, Michal Bobek, submitted his opinion on which states that even if data controllers such as Facebook have their headquarters in the EU, all EU member countries can initiate judicial processes based the cross-border data processing violations according to the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"). 

In the incident subject to the opinion, the Belgian Data Protection Authority has conducted an investigation against the Facebook Companies (Facebook Inc., Facebook Ireland Ltd, and Facebook Belgium BVBA) and demanded from the Belgian courts to do not allow Facebook to use certain cookies without permission of the users, to collect excessive data, and had asked to delete personal data. However, Facebook claimed that the Belgian courts had no jurisdiction over Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland Ltd. and these demands could only be alleged by the Irish courts or the Irish Data Protection Authority, which is the company's headquarters in the EU.

The European Court of Justice emphasized that although the Irish Data Protection Authority is the lead authority on the subject, it cannot be seen as the sole enforcer of the GDPR in cross-border data processing activities and that it is necessary to cooperate with other member countries data protection authorities in order to meet the requirements of the GDPR.

In this context, it stated that the GDPR permits the data protection authority of a Member State to bring proceedings before a court of that State for an alleged infringement of the GDPR with respect to cross-border data processing, despite it not being the lead data protection authority entrusted with a general power to commence such proceedings, provided that it does so in the situations where the GDPR specifically confers upon it competences to this end and according to the corresponding procedures set out in the GDPR.

You can find the text of the press release here.

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Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

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