EU Court’s Ruling Opens Door To More Regulatory Scrutiny Of Facebook, Big Tech

The European Court Of Justice, the EU’s highest court, has ruled that national regulatory agencies can act against alleged privacy violations by Facebook and other big tech companies even when they’re not the respective lead regulators, Reuters said.

Many large American tech companies – Facebook, Google, Apple, and Twitter – have planted their EU headquarters in Ireland, making them subject to the Irish data protection regulator under the rules of an EU privacy law called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

The problem is, quite a few national regulatory agencies in other EU countries have complained that their Irish counterpart has been taking too long to decide on cases. Ireland, on the other hand, has claimed that it needs to be especially meticulous when dealing with powerful, cash-flush companies. 

This apparently came to a head when Facebook contested the territorial competence of a Belgian privacy watchdog which had pursued legal action against the social media company. Consequently, a Belgian court sought guidance on the matter from the EU Court of Justice.

“Under certain conditions, a national supervisory authority may exercise its power to bring any alleged infringement of the GDPR before a court of a member state, even though that authority is not the lead supervisory authority,” the EU court ruled.

Big tech companies have been beginning to feel the pinch as governments around the world take a more critical view of their dealings and practices. Even on their home ground in America, legislators have been increasingly vocal against the anti-competitive power of Silicon Valley giants.

Line Comes Under Scrutiny After Chinese Engineers Reportedly Accessed User Data

The popular messaging app Line is now under investigation by the Japanese government after local media reported that it allowed Chinese engineers at a Shanghai company to access Japanese users’ data without telling them.

According to the report by Reuters, a government official has stated that investigations were ongoing and that they are unable to tell if Line violated any regulations yet. At the same time, a spokesperson from Line denied that the firm broke any laws or regulations.

But on its website, the company later apologised for causing any concern and for inadequately explaining its data management policies to users, adding that no inappropriate access took place.

Local media has reported that four Chinese engineers, tasked with system maintenance, were given access to Japanese servers from 2018 containing names, telephone numbers, and email addresses of users.

The alarm over the incident probably stems from Japan’s often choppy relations and historical unease with China. It doesn’t help that China-backed hackers were blamed for a recent massive breach of Microsoft Exchange email servers.

For what it’s worth, China has acquired a reputation for spying and hacking in the last few years.

Accordingly, researchers at Stanford University last month raised concern over social media app Clubhouse’s affiliation with Shanghai-based company Agora. Also, last month, TikTok settled a privacy lawsuit alleging that it sent user data to Chinese servers or certain locations in which China-based employees could access the data.

Beijing may not like it, but the very mention of China raises suspicion these days.