The judgement against the Safe Harbour agreement means that thousands of companies will have to host their European user data in Europe, and not in the US.
The court ruled that the US does not have adequate protection for personal Facebook data – after a case was taken through the Irish High Court over the transfer of information on Facebook.
Simon McGarr – a solicitor who represents Digital Rights Ireland – says it is a victory for the European model of protecting data.
“It's clear that the European Court of Justice has made a decision that the fundamental rights of EU citizens are to be upheld and that they expect national data protection authorities that they also take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that those data protection rights are upheld” he said.
“To that end, they've struck down the European Commission's decision that says that the Safe Harbour arrangement between the EU and the US does provide sufficient protection for EU citizen's data” he added.
