(Adds Facebook comment)
DUBLIN, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Ireland's High Court on Monday
temporarily froze a probe by Facebook's lead European
Union regulator that threatened to halt the U.S. social media
giant's transatlantic data flows, a court spokesman said.
Facebook had sought a judicial review of the Irish Data
Protection Commission's preliminary decision that the mechanism
it used to transfer data from the European Union to the United
States "cannot in practice be used."
"Leave to take the Judicial Review was granted," the court
spokesman said.
"A stay was put on the Section 11 order," he added,
referring to the Data Protection Commission order that
threatened to block the data flows. No date has yet been set for
the matter to return to the court, he said.
A Facebook spokeswoman welcomed the court decision.
"Businesses need clear, global rules, underpinned by the strong
rule of law, to protect transatlantic data flows over the long
term," she said.
In seeking to derail the Irish regulator's decision,
Facebook has said the mechanism in question, the Standard
Contractual Clause (SCC), had been deemed valid by the Court of
Justice of the European Union in July.
However, the July ruling also said that under SCCs, privacy
watchdogs must suspend or prohibit transfers outside the EU if
data protection in other countries cannot be assured.
The transatlantic argument stems from EU concerns that the
surveillance regime in the United States may not respect the
privacy rights of EU citizens when their personal data is sent
to the United States for commercial use.
Standard Contractual Clause are used by thousands of
companies to transfer Europeans' data around the world and a ban
could cause widespread disruption to transatlantic data
services.
Max Schrems, the data privacy activist who is a party in the
case, said that Facebook had argued it needed more time to
respond and that it would be unfair that the Irish regulator was
only targeting Facebook and not other tech companies.
A Data Protection Commission spokesman declined to comment.
(Reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Toby Chopra and
Carmel Crimmins)