Max Schrems has successfully led a lawsuit against Facebook to the Austrian Supreme Court. (Photo : Reuters)
Data privacy activist Max Schrems has successfully led a lawsuit against Facebook to the Austrian Supreme Court while the social media company also faces a privacy complaint from the Belgian Privacy Commission (BPC).
Schrems hopes that the lawsuit would be accepted as a class action case as the Viennese lawyer attracted the attention of tens of thousands of adult Facebook users who were not staying in either the United States or Canada and wanted to complain about the site.
The lawsuit filed by Schrems tackles the various EU data protection laws allegedly being violated by Facebook, according to Tech Crunch. Some of the breaches in privacy include the lack of consent to certain data gathering processes, the recording of user data outside Facebook and the observance of users through big data systems.
Likewise, the data privacy activist argues that the Austrian Supreme Court should accept the lawsuit as a class action because it would be easier to process thousands of similar complaints filed alongside Schrems' case. If the court refuses to treat the case as a class action lawsuit, thousands of people could just file the same lawsuits individually.
Facebook would still be forced to respond to the legal complaints filed by Schrems even if the court does not treat the lawsuit as a class action. If that would happen, the lawyer could simply file the lawsuit as a model case.
Similarly, the social media company has also been facing a battle with the BPC, according to BBC. The commission delivered the case to court on Nov. 9 and demanded that Facebook should remove the tracker cookies being utilized to follow the online movement of people who are not even Facebook users.
If Facebook does not follow the order, the company would have to pay a fine of about 250,000 euros every single day. However, one factor that has delayed the case is the fact that the 33-page English translation of the court document has yet to be completed and received by Facebook.
Meanwhile, Facebook has noted that the tracker cookies are meant to prevent people controlling the accounts of others. The company also said that other big internet services have been using tracker cookies.
Currently, Facebook is believed to be discussing with the BPC to solve the issue.
