Max Schrems

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Max Schrems (2016)

Maximilian "Max" Schrems (* October 1987 in Salzburg ) is an Austrian lawyer , author and data protection activist. With his action before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), he was able to terminate the transnational Safe Harbor Agreement between the EU and the USA, which is seen as a strong signal for the protection of fundamental rights in Europe. In addition, the EU-US Privacy Shield was overturned by the ECJ in response to his complaint . He is CEO of the NOYB initiative , which is committed to enforcing data protection rights.

Life

Schrems grew up in Salzburg and attended the Bundesrealgymnasium Akademiestraße there, where he graduated from . In 2005 he completed a semester abroad with AFS in the USA. From 2005 to 2010 he was on the board of AFS Austria. In 2007 Schrems moved to Vienna to study law at the University of Vienna . During his studies he dealt mainly with IT law and data protection . In 2011 he published a monograph on the legal situation of video surveillance in Austria. During a semester abroad at Santa Clara University in California, he met representatives of the US company Facebook Inc. , which led to the involvement with Facebook. After working as a project assistant at the University of Vienna, he graduated in 2012.

In July 2017 it became known that Schrems was advising the NEOS party on the subject of digitization . In the 2017 National Council election in Austria , he was on the non-partisan personal committee of Christian Kern (SPÖ).

Projects

europe-v-facebook.org

Max Schrems (2012)

On August 18, 2011, 16 complaints were filed with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC). Another six followed on September 19, 2011. These were published by Schrems on the website europe-v-facebook.org together with the respective documents. The DPC published a first report on December 21, 2011. On February 6, 2012, Schrems met with representatives of Facebook in Vienna for negotiations, as Irish procedural law initially provides for a joint solution to the dispute through the participation of both parties to the dispute. Attempts were made between January and July to gain access to the files, which the Irish authorities did not allow until the end. On September 21, 2012, the DPC published a review in which Facebook is certified to have complied with the suggestions. As a result, a counter-report with various applications was submitted on December 4, 2012, which the authorities did not process or comment on. On August 28, 2013, at the urging of the DPC, a motion for a decision was filed, although no files or evidence had previously been disclosed. The complaint was withdrawn in July 2014 after a good three years because, according to Schrems, there was no prospect of a decision and the data protection authority further refused to grant access to files or to make a decision.

PRISM / Safe Harbor

In 2000, the EU Commission came up with the Safe Harbor rules for the safe data port - sensitive data should also be allowed to be processed outside the EU if certain principles are observed. Even after Edward Snowden described in 2013 that US secret services such as the NSA and other authorities can access the servers of US corporations such as Facebook and Google unhindered, politics and business insisted on Safe Harbor.

On June 25, 2013, in the course of the discovery of PRISM, new advertisements were launched against the European subsidiary Facebook Ltd. brought in Ireland and Apple to the Irish DPC. Identical reports against Microsoft , Skype and Yahoo were submitted to the National Commission for Data Protection in Luxembourg and the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision . The latter was forwarded to the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI).

The Irish DPC replied in a letter of 23 July 2013 that no proceedings would be opened because the complaint was nonsensical and senseless ("frivolous"). The Irish authority relied on the existing Safe Harbor system. Schrems sued the Irish Data Protection Authority to deal with his complaint. The case has been brought to the European Court of Justice by the Irish High Court .

On September 23, 2015, the Advocate General of the ECJ announced that he did not consider the current procedure for data transfers from the EU to the USA to be permissible and called the Safe Harbor Agreement into question. In its judgment of October 6, 2015, the ECJ followed this legal view; he declared the agreement invalid and current practice illegal. In a statement Schrems wrote: "The ruling shows that mass surveillance violates our fundamental rights." He hopes that the ruling will mark a milestone for all online privacy.

In 2012 Schrems founded the association for the implementation of the fundamental right to data protection "europe-v-facebook.org". This association is registered in the Austrian association register under the ZVR number 351391770 and collects donations via the platform “crowd4privacy.org”. The funds were used to pay for the Safe Harbor crackdown.

At the Hacker Congress 34C3 in 2017, Schrems reported on the Safe Harbor successor Privacy Shield and the further action against it.

The Irish data protection authority saw a need for further clarification on the application of EU law and referred the case back to the ECJ, where the proceedings were continued with a hearing on July 9, 2019.

Class action in Vienna

In 2014, a class action lawsuit was brought against Facebook in Ireland in Vienna. The class action suit was joined by 25,000 people. Facebook users were able to assign their claims on fbclaim.com to Schrems, who sued them free of charge for users. This type of accumulation of actions is possible in Austria as a “class action with an Austrian character” and allows complex factual and legal issues to be dealt with in one concentrated procedure. The jurisdiction of the Austrian courts in this case was disputed. In January 2018, the ECJ, requested by the Supreme Court for an opinion, determined that no consumer jurisdiction can be invoked in Vienna in the event of legal succession. A class action in Vienna was therefore no longer possible due to the lack of jurisdiction of the Austrian courts.

LobbyPlag.eu

The LobbyPlag.eu project was operated in cooperation with OpenDataCity. In 2013, the platform revealed that EU parliamentarians had adopted amendments to the European General Data Protection Regulation word for word from lobby papers. The initiative sparked a debate within the European Parliament about how to deal with lobbying.

In a second version, LobbyPlag.eu evaluated the more than 3,100 amendments to the General Data Protection Regulation and thus showed which EU parliamentarians were in favor of more or less data protection. The aim was to give the public an insight into the confusing flood of amendments. This led, among other things, to a scandal in Belgium , as a result of which the Belgian MEP Louis Michel had to withdraw a large part of his amendments.

NOYB

In November 2017 he founded the Privacy - NGO NOYB - European Center for Digital Rights . NOYB stands for “none of your business” . That is none of your business . The initiative aims to counter data breaches by companies.

On July 16, 2020, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) overturned the EU-US data protection agreement " Privacy Shield ". Schrems had complained to the Irish data protection authority that Facebook Ireland forwards its data to the parent company in the USA. An Irish court then turned to the ECJ, which should decide whether the standard contractual clauses and the EU-US data protection shield ("Privacy Shield") are compatible with the European level of data protection. The Luxembourg judges have now declared the "Privacy Shield" to be invalid. With a view to the access options of the US authorities, the requirements for data protection are not guaranteed. In addition, legal protection for those affected is inadequate.

bibliography

Awards and honors

Web links

Commons : Maximilian Schrems  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max Schrems: His opponent is called Facebook. Kleine Zeitung , February 7, 2012, accessed January 27, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b "Safe Harbor": ECJ declares data agreement with the USA to be invalid. Spiegel Online , accessed October 6, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b ORF at / agencies red: Success for Schrems: ECJ overturns data transfer agreement with USA. July 16, 2020, accessed July 16, 2020 .
  4. ↑ ELSA. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 20, 2013 ; Retrieved August 5, 2013 .
  5. ↑ Juristl 4.12. (PDF; 1.3 MB) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 20, 2013 ; Retrieved October 19, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Legal informatics working group. Retrieved October 19, 2013 .
  7. ^ FOR-net. (No longer available online.) 2000, archived from the original on October 20, 2013 ; Retrieved August 5, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Data protection activist Schrems helps Neos with "Opportunity Plan" . In: The press . ( diepresse.com [accessed on July 21, 2017]).
  9. ↑ Max Schrems helps the Neos and supports Chancellor Kern. In: The press. August 31, 2017, accessed February 15, 2018 .
  10. ^ Maximilian Schrems: Europe versus facebook news. In: europe-v-facebook.org. January 24, 2018, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  11. ^ Martin U. Müller : Kulturkampf ums Save. In: Der Spiegel . June 7, 2014, accessed on September 30, 2017 (German).
  12. ↑ europe-v-facebook ads. Retrieved August 5, 2013 .
  13. ↑ europe-v-facebook. (PDF; 544 kB) Retrieved on August 5, 2013 .
  14. ↑  (June 25, 2013). europe-v-facebook Apple (Complaint against “Apple Distribution International”) . 5th August 2013.
  15. ↑  (June 25, 2013). europe-v-facebook Microsoft (application for compliance with my basic rights (Art 32 Para 4 DSG)) . 5th August 2013.
  16. ↑  (June 26, 2013). europe-v-facebook Skype (application for compliance with my basic rights (Art 32 Para 4 DSG)) . 5th August 2013.
  17. ↑  (June 25, 2013). europe-v-facebook Yahoo! (Complaint against "Yahoo! Deutschland GmbH") . 5th August 2013.
  18. ↑ ECJ Case C-362/14. Retrieved October 16, 2014 .
  19. ↑ Johannes Wendt and Patrick Beuth: Attack on Safe Harbor. In: ECJ. Zeit Online , March 24, 2015, accessed January 27, 2018 .
  20. ↑ ECJ General Advocate considers data transfer from EU to USA to be invalid. Retrieved September 23, 2015 .
  21. ^ Salzburger Nachrichten: Salzburg lawsuit against Facebook: stage win for Max Schrems. Retrieved September 23, 2015 .
  22. ↑ Max Schrems against Facebook: the David of the digital world. Hannoversche Allgemeine, October 6, 2015, accessed on October 7, 2015 .
  23. ↑ ZVR. Retrieved August 5, 2013 .
  24. ↑ a b Maximilian Schrems: Privacy Shield - Lipstick on a Pig? In: 34C3. media.ccc.de , December 30, 2017, accessed on December 31, 2017 (English, video).
  25. ↑ Monika Ermert: Schrems vs. Facebook: The ECJ has the floor again. heise online, July 10, 2019, accessed on July 14, 2019 .
  26. ↑ europe-v-facebook class action. Retrieved October 17, 2014 .
  27. ↑ Facebook lawsuit: Max Schrem's trial begins . In: Der Spiegel . April 9, 2015.
  28. ^ Maximilian Schrems: facebook class action: Updates / Media. In: fbclaim.com. November 4, 2017, accessed December 31, 2017 .
  29. ^ Daniel AJ Sokolov: Defeat for Max Schrems: ECJ rejects class action against Facebook. Heise online , January 25, 2018, accessed on January 27, 2018 .
  30. ↑ Jakob Steinschaden: Boredom will be the end of Facebook. Netzpiloten.de, June 21, 2013, accessed on December 31, 2017 .
  31. ↑ EU Observer. Retrieved October 19, 2013 .
  32. ↑ EUobserver. Retrieved January 29, 2014 .
  33. ↑ Schrems founds data protection NGO "noyb" in Vienna. In: diePresse.com / APA . November 28, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2017 .
  34. ↑ Allegra Pirker: Privacy as Reality. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 2, 2017, accessed December 7, 2017 .
  35. ↑ Big Brother Awards: The winners have been announced. Retrieved October 19, 2013 .
  36. ↑ Salzburg Window. (PDF; archive file; article on page 3) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 22, 2014 ; accessed on May 22, 2014 .
  37. ↑ EPIC.org. Retrieved August 5, 2013 .
  38. ^ Privacy Activist Max Schrems Receives Internet and Society Award from the Oxford Internet Institute . In: OII Internet Awards . Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 17, 2014.
  39. ↑ Encouragement of the month: A European against Facebook In: Finanztest 5/2014 and test.de on April 22, 2014.
  40. ↑ Press release of the jubilee award ceremony May 4, 2015 ( Memento from August 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 17, 2015
  41. ↑ EFF Announces 2016 Pioneer Award Winners. Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 9, 2016, accessed January 18, 2017 .
  42. ↑ Maximilian Schrems. Forbes, 2017, accessed January 18, 2017 .
  43. ↑ Federal Consumer Protection Prize 2019 - Prize Winner Maximilian Schrems. German Consumer Protection Foundation , 2019, accessed on December 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Schrems, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schrems, Maximilian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian lawyer, author and data protection activist
DATE OF BIRTH October 1987
PLACE OF BIRTH Salzburg