Max Schrems and the 25,000 social networkers are suing Facebook for tracking their data and have filed a suit in a court in Vienna for alleged privacy breaches and various rights violations.
These include the alleged illegal tracking of their data under European Union law — and Facebook's involvement in the PRISM surveillance programme by the US National Security Agency revealed by Edward Snowden.
Court hearing in Vienna went well. Facebook's attempt to argue that I am not a consumer seems to have failed..;)
— Max Schrems (@maxschrems) April 9, 2015
The European headquarters of Facebook, like Google, are registered in Dublin. Schrems and the social networkers are subsequently able to file the case because under EU law, all member states have to enforce court rulings from any other member states. Schrems told AFP news agency:
"Basically, we're asking Facebook to stop mass surveillance, to have a proper privacy policy that people can understand, but also to stop collecting data of people that are not even Facebook users."
Facebook is trying to halt the lawsuit. The social media company's lawyer Nikolaus Pitowitz told the judge in Vienna, "the lawsuit is inadmissible on the procedural level — the court is not responsible. It is unjustified in terms of content."
Facebook sending 'nonposts' to its servers and storing your unpublished thoughts http://t.co/unb30FONEI
— Dermot Casey (@dermotcasey) April 7, 2015
Max Schrems is claiming $538 in damages for each user.
Privacy Class Action
It's been called the largest privacy class action in Europe. More than 25,000 users made their claims on fbclaim.com. And another 50,000 users have registered their interest to join the 'class action' later.
And this isn't the first time a group of people have taken legal action against one of the world's biggest internet companies. Another case dubbed David versus Goliath involves a bunch of British IT experts who are suing Google for collecting their personal data without their prior approval.
Google had argued that no harm was done because the matter was trivial and that the action could only go ahead under the 1998 Data Protection Act if there had been a financial loss.
But Lord Dyson, Master of the Rolls, and Lady Justice Sharp said in their joint judgment, with which Lord Justice McFarlane agreed: "On the face of it, these claims raise serious issues which merit a trial."
The appeal judges said Mr Justice Tugendhat, who heard the case in the High Court, had been entitled to come to the view that it was "clearly arguable" that Article 8 (right to a private life) of the European Convention on Human Rights was engaged and gave weight to allowing the claims to proceed.
