As illustrated by Anya Proops’ recent post on a Hungarian case currently before the CJEU, the territorial jurisdiction of European data protection law can raise difficult questions.

Such questions have bitten hard in the Europe vs Facebook litigation. Max Schrems, an Austrian law graduate, is spearheading a massive class action in which some 25,000 Facebook users allege numerous data protection violations by the social media giant. Those include: unlawful obtaining of personal data (including via plug-ins and “like” buttons); invalid consent to Facebook’s processing of users’ personal data; use of personal data for impermissible purposes, including the unlawful analysing of data/profiling of users (“the Defendant analyses the data available on every user and tries to explore users’ interests, preferences and circumstances…”); unlawful sharing of personal data with third parties and third-party applications. The details of the claim are here.

Importantly, however, the claim is against Facebook Ireland Ltd, a subsidiary of the Californian-based Facebook Inc. The class action has been brought in Austria.

Facebook challenged the Austrian court’s jurisdiction. Last week, it received a judgment in its favour from the Viennese Regional Civil Court. The Court said it lacks jurisdiction in part because Mr Schrems is not deemed to be a ‘consumer’ of Facebook’s services. In part also, it lacks jurisdiction because Austria is not the right place to be bringing the claim. Facebook argued that the claim should be brought either in Ireland or in California, and the Court agreed.

Mr Schrems has announced his intention to appeal. In the meantime, the Austrian decision will continue to raise both eyebrows and questions, particularly given that a number of other judgments in recent years have seen European courts accepting jurisdiction to hear claims against social media companies (such as Google: see Vidal-Hall, for example) based elsewhere.

The Austrian decision also highlights the difficulties of the ‘one-stop shop’ principle which remains part of the draft Data Protection Regulation (albeit in more nuanced and complicated formulation than had earlier been proposed). In short, why should an Austrian user have to sue in Ireland?

Panopticon will report on any developments in this case in due course. It will also report on the other strand of Mr Schrems’ privacy campaign, namely his challenge to the lawfulness of the Safe Harbour regime for the transferring of personal data to the USA. That challenge has been heard by the CJEU, and the Advocate General’s opinion is imminent. The case will have major implications for those whose business involves transatlantic data transfers.

Robin Hopkins @hopkinsrobin