Facebook’s adoption of the treaty is significant because the prior US-EU agreement, Safe Harbour, was abolished by the European Court of Justice as a direct result of legal action against the social network by privacy campaigners.
In October 2016, the ECJ declared the 15-year-old Safe Harbour treaty invalid amid concerns that it was enabling US surveillance, threatening the ability of companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft to move data between continents.
The Irish court said Facebook’s ¬activity was legal under Safe Harbour but referred the matter to the ECJ, which threw out the treaty citing recent revelations about the extent of US surveillance of individuals.Privacy Shield, a replacement deal that was designed to provide extra safeguards for Europeans, came into force in July. Google and Microsoft have already adopted the treaty.
Facebook signed up at the end of September, although only two aspects of the social network use it. The first is Workplace, a special version of Facebook that allows company employees to communicate, which launched last week.
The other is its “Ads and Measurement” technology that uses customer data supplied by other companies to target adverts. Other user data is not covered by the treaty, although it can be transferred to the US under secondary legal measures.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now