End of safe-harbour deal: S'pore's position

IN June 2013, Maximillian Schrems, a 27-year-old Austrian citizen and regular Facebook user, asked the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to prohibit Facebook Ireland from transferring his personal data to the United States. Mr Schrems's reason for this unusual request was that in view of Edward Snowden's disclosures about surveillance activities by US intelligence services, transfers of personal data to the US were not adequately protected from such surveillance.

The Irish authority dismissed the complaint on the basis of a European Commission (EC) decision in 2000 that adequate protection existed under a EU-US safe-harbour agreement to facilitate cross-border transfers of personal data. The safe-harbour privacy principles allowed US companies to self-certify that they complied with EU adequacy requirements.

However, in a ground-breaking decision on Oct 6, 2015, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) declared the EC's decision to be invalid.