Dr Maria Tzanou, a senior lecturer in law at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC that Friday’s judgement showed data protection principles are not “toothless”.
“They do matter when big tech companies process personal data,” she added.
Will Richmond-Coggan, a partner at law firm Freeths, said the EU court’s decision will have “significant implications” despite not being binding for UK courts.
“Meta has suffered a serious challenge to its preferred business model of collecting, aggregating and leveraging substantial data troves in respect of as many individuals as possible, in order to produce rich insights and deep targeting of personalised advertising,” he said.
He added the company could face similar challenges in other jurisdictions based on the same concerns – noting Mr Schrems’ challenge was based on principles that exist in UK law.
Austria’s Supreme Court referred questions over how the GDPR applied to Mr Schrems’ complaint, answered on Friday, to the EU’s top court in 2021.
It asked whether Mr Schrems referring to his sexuality in a public setting meant he gave firms the green light to process this data for personalised advertising, by making it public.
The CJEU said that while it was for the Austrian court to decide if he had made the information “manifestly public data”, his public reference to his sexual orientation did not mean he authorised processing of any other personal data.
Mr Schrems’ legal team told the BBC that the Austrian Supreme Court is bound by the Court of Justice’s judgement.
They said they expect the Supreme Court’s final judgement in the coming weeks or months.
Mr Schrems has taken Meta to court several times over its approach to processing EU user data.
Additional reporting by Chris Vallance
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gr4r5ln03o,
GO TO SAUBIO DIGITAL FOR MORE ANSWERS AND INFORMATION ON ANY TOPIC
