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Maximilian Schrems (usually referred to as Max Schrems) is an Austrian privacy activist who campaigns against Facebook for privacy violation, including its alleged violations of European privacy laws and alleged transfer of personal data to the US National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the NSA's PRISM programme. He has founded a group called Europe v Facebook and as of February 2015 is involved in two lawsuits against Facebook.

Background and past actions

While studying law during a semester abroad at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley, Schrems decided to write his term paper on Facebook's lack of awareness of European privacy law, after being surprised by what the company's privacy lawyer, Ed Palmieri, said to his class on the subject. He later made a request under the European "right to access" provision for the company's records on him and received a CD containing over 1,200 pages of data, which he published at Europe v Facebook with personal information redacted. He filed numerous complaints about the company, and in February 2012 Richard Allan and another company executive flew to Vienna for a meeting with him that lasted six hours. According to Schrems, Facebook was audited under European law and had to delete some files and disable its facial recognition software.

Europe v Facebook lawsuit

On 18 June 2014 a case brought by the group in the Irish High Court was referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Facebook class action

Schrems is also suing Facebook in a class action suit dubbed by the press as a David and Goliath suit, estimated as likely to be the largest class action privacy suit ever brought. Participation in the suit is presently limited to 25,000 Facebook users, although other users can still register an interest. Schrems is suing the Irish subsidiary of Facebook in the Vienna courts for €500 in damages per participant. Finance for the case is being supplied by the German litigation funder ROLAND ProzessFinanz.

On 20 November 2014, Schrems said at a conference convened in Brussels by the International Association of Privacy Professionals that his group would go on a head-on collision with Safe Harbour, an E.U.-U.S. agreement that allows over 3,000 U.S. companies, including Google, Facebook, and Apple, to repatriate European personal data. Schrems argues that in practice it does not give the consumer any protection.

The first hearing is set for 9 April 2015.

References

1. ^ Hill, Kashmir (7 February 2012). "Max Schrems: The Austrian Thorn In Facebook's Side". Forbes.
2. Llana, Sara Miller; de Pommereau, Isabelle (18 January 2015). "Europe pivots between safety and privacy online". The Christian Science Monitor.
3. Mac Cormaic, Ruadhán (19 June 2014). "High Court refers Facebook privacy case to Europe". Irish Times.
4. "Lawyer suing Facebook overwhelmed with support". The Guardian.
5. Schechner, Sam. "Max Schrems Vs. Facebook: Activist Takes Aim at U.S.-EU Safe Harbor". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 21 November 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
6. Lunden, Ingrid. "Facebook's European Privacy Class Action Hearing Set For April 9". techcrunch.com. Techcrunch.

External links

• Europe v Facebook site
• Facebook class action site

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