High Court hands Irish DPC victory in Facebook data transfers case

On Friday, the Irish High Court dismissed all of Facebook's procedural complaints in a preliminary decision from Ireland's Data Protection Commission regarding data transfers from the EU to the U.S. A win for the Irish DPC, the court decision opens up the possibility that Facebook would eventually have to halt personal data transfers from the EU to the U.S. The case could ultimately affect trans-Atlantic data flows for other companies as well and came in response to last summer's "Schrems II" decision from the Court of Justice of the EU. Last September, the Irish DPC initiated a preliminary decision against Facebook which the company appealed on procedural grounds. That appeal was dismissed by the Irish High Court. According to the Wall Street Journal, the process to finalize the DPC's preliminary decision "could now restart." Last year, the DPC had given Facebook until mid-September to file a response to its preliminary order. After that, the DPC has said it would submit a draft order for approval to the European Data Protection Board, which could take several months.