Ireland: Ireland's High Court rejects Facebook appeal against Irish privacy regulator

Ireland's High Court rejected Facebook's request to halt the Data Protection Commission's (DPC) probe on data transfers from the European Union to the United States. Facebook had claimed in its appeal to the Irish High Court that the DPC made its decision before getting direction from the European Data Protection Board. Following the High Court's judgment that the inquiry may restart, the DPC has given Facebook an extended six weeks to submit a response to the draft decision, which might result in a ban on the social media giant's transatlantic data transfers. The data transfer inquiry freeze is scheduled to be formally lifted on 20 May 2021. The draft decision originated from the CJEU "Schrems II" judgment (invalidating the US Privacy Shield) as well as further European concerns that US government monitoring may violate EU residents' privacy rights when personal information is transported to the US for commercial purposes. If the DPC succeeds in upholding its preliminary draft ruling, this will have an impact on trans-Atlantic data flows for other corporations that are subject to US surveillance laws, and might result in a widespread interruption of EU-US data transfers.