Austrian Law Student Maximillion Schrems made a complaint to the Irish Data Protection Authorities in light of Edward Snowden’s revelations about the US National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of Facebook data in the US. He requested that the Irish Authority investigate Facebooks arrangements for the security of European citizen’s data where it is held on servers in the US. In doing so he has conjured up a privacy storm in the already choppy waters of the Commissions Safe Harbour under Decision 2000/520/EC of 26 July 2000.
The US government website http://export.gov/safeharbor/ (i) where American companies can register to self-certify under the safe harbour scheme looks exactly the same today as it did before the Schrems Decision, but the decision issued yesterday has swept away the very foundations of that scheme invalidating EU US data sharing arrangements founded upon it.
Yesterday the ICO issued an undertaking to a Scottish law firm in Ayr, after the loss of a DVD which contained footage relating to a criminal trial, provided by the Crown. The DVD was not encrypted by the Crown, although the ICO did not comment on this in the Undertaking. The DVD seems to have been picked up by another solicitor, apparently as a favour to the intended recipient, since that solicitor was closer to the prosecutor’s office, but it was then lost and never reached the solicitor for whom it was intended.
Lord Ken MacDonald QC, the former DPP, was on the Today programme this morning talking about the separation of powers in relation to criminal prosecutions. The police investigate, the Crown decides whether to prosecute, the jury decides on guilt or innocence and the Judge decides on the sentence.
Following the Paris attacks, David Cameron and the Head of MI5 have renewed calls for new laws to allow greater surveillance of internet communications.
