Facebook is being sued over alleged breaches of European privacy laws and involvement in the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program in a class action data privacy lawsuit by a large sum of people.
Filed in a Vienna court on Thursday (April 9th), the lawsuit is being led by 27-year-old Austrian law graduate and privacy campaigner Max Schrems. It is targeting Facebook’s European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, which handles all accounts outside the U.S. and Canada.
Within the Europe vs. Facebook suit, it reads: “We are suing Facebook Ireland, located in Dublin. Within the European Union all member states have to fully enforce court rulings from any other member state. A ruling from Austria has therefore the same effect as a ruling from Ireland. The fact that Facebook is a US company is irrelevant, because all users outside of the US and Canada got a contract with Facebook Ireland. These are more than 80% of all worldwide Facebook users.”
Europe vs. Facebook was started last year in August with an invitation for participants to join in the civil action. It quickly attracted 25,000 sign-ups, with each plaintiff claiming a sum of 500 euros ($540) in damages, making the total around $13.5 million.
“Basically we are 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,” said Schrems.
Facebook’s legal team considers the case to be invalid under Austrian law, claiming that “there is no legal basis for a U.S.-style class action.” Schrems’ lawyer dismissed this argument, saying it lacks “any substance.”
According to The Guardian, “Schrems was able to file his action against the Irish subsidiary in a civil court in Vienna because he claims Facebook is in breach of European law on users’ data.”
In 2013, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied the allegations, saying, “We don’t work directly with the NSA, or with any other program. Nor do we proactively give user information to anyone, nor has anyone approached us to do that.”
