European Court Rules Digital Info Transfer Agreement Invalid

(RTTNews) - European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has canceled the international agreement between European Union and United States to handover digital information, such as web search histories and social media updates. The ruling will be a blow to tech giants Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

The court observed that if there is an infringement by an American company, most of the region's citizens would not have a right to bring legal cases in the U.S. The court noted that the Safe harbor agreement would allow U.S. government authorities to access European online information and that would infringe rights to privacy. It has been in effect since 2000.

There is no provision to appeal European Court of Justice's ruling and it will be implemented immediately.

The case was filed by MX Schrems, an Austrian student, who argued that the Safe harbor rules that allow tech companies to send personal data to the U.S. would be misused. The judgment asked the Ireland data protection commissioner to consider Schrems' case again and to carry out investigations.