ECJ Member Opinion On Facebook Case: Any EU Member State May Launch GDPR Proceedings

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th January, 2021) National data protection agencies in any EU member state may start court proceedings on the breaches of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if that law allows them to do so, Advocate General in the EU Court of Justice Michal Bobek said in a legal opinion on Wednesday.

Bobek's opinion comes in response to a legal dispute between a Belgian privacy regulator and Facebook. The tech company argued that only the Irish privacy watchdog could launch such a legal case due to Facebook main EU office being in Ireland. Generally, the state, where a company in question has its main EU establishment has the power to launch GDPR court proceedings.

"Under these conditions, the Advocate General considers that the GDPR permits the data protection authority of a Member State to bring proceedings before a court of that State for an alleged infringement of the GDPR with respect to cross-border data processing, despite it not being the lead data protection authority entrusted with a general power to commence such proceedings, provided that it does so in the situations where the GDPR specifically confers upon it competences to this end and according to the corresponding procedures set out in the GDPR," the opinion read.

Belgian authorities suspect Facebook of placing cookies on people's devices without their consent.