Complaint filed against Irish subsidiaries of Apple, Facebook

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/media-and-marketing/complaint-filed-against-irish-subsidiaries-of-apple-facebook-1.1443217

by dnlbyl • 13 years ago

181 44 13 years ago

irishtimes.com

orokusaki2• 13 years ago

Let me see if I understand this correctly. It's OK for the state to have 120 cameras on each street corner watching your every move (see London), but it's not OK to share your Facebook posts?

Disclaimer: I'm very much against any invasion of privacy, and am only being facetious to point out the obvious, which is that people should stand up for their rights when it becomes obvious, not just when it becomes sensational news

kjjw• 13 years ago

I'm sorry but there is a very obvious and clear distinction between these two forms of surveillance. The first monitors public space, the second does not.

To me it is not obvious that "my rights" have been affected by the monitoring of public spaces.

pyre• 13 years ago

I disagree with the "CCTV everywhere" movement, but I agree that it is preferable to the invasions put forth by the NSA/US Government.

octagonal• 13 years ago

There is no right to privacy in public spaces and no expectation thereof either. The only thing those cameras do is replace police officers. Another thing you are also forgetting is that people were aware of those cameras the second they were installed. No secret court bullshit. With personal correspondences on the other hand, people expect the contents of their messages to be entirely private. That secrecy should only be invaded upon within the confines of a morally justifiable law, especially when a foreign agency is doing the invading.

maxerickson2• 13 years ago

I think you mean there is no reasonable legal expectation of privacy on a public street. I certainly expect that you will not follow me around videotaping me.

hermaj2• 13 years ago

The vast majority of CCTV cameras in the UK are privately owned and have no connection to the state.

The 4 million+ cameras in the UK statistic which has been floating around for about 10 years now was extrapolated from two streets in Wandsworth and was only ever really media bait. If you believed all these statistics the number of cameras in the UK would have dropped by more than half (over the past 10 years), since the last large scale estimate was under 2 million.

orokusaki2• 13 years ago

Sure, but what if I place a camera on each side of your property (outside the property line) of your house, pointing to the edge of your property, then use your tax dollars to pay employees to watch you on the cameras every time you leave your property? Would you enjoy that? If not, why would you put up with it? It's your state, not the government's state. The government are your employees, not your owners, so you have to decide which rights you want, not just which rights can still be defended by existing laws.

pilsetnieks• 13 years ago

UK is not representative of the whole EU.

rmc5• 13 years ago

especially when it comes to EU-wide things or EU law. UK often implements the mininum, or opts out of parts (e.g. euro)

rmc5• 13 years ago

I will point out that this complaint against Facebook was filed in Ireland with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, whereas you're talking about a different country, the UK.

jbooth2• 13 years ago

Obviously the Austrian student group who filed this lawsuit are total hypocrites based on what the UK does.

itg• 13 years ago

Article also mentioned Microsoft, Skype, and Yahoo will be targeted in other countries but there was nothing about Google or Youtube. However, found this on techcrunch:

"Google and YouTube have not been included in this first round of evf complaints being as they have a different corporate structure that does not include European subsidiaries. However it notes they do have datacenters in European countries, which will give evf a route to filing Prism-related data protection complaints against both at a later date."

Forcing these companies to give data has weakened their competitiveness globally.

revscat• 13 years ago

I am curious to see if the business case against the NSA's power will have an effect. Right now I think things favor the bureaucracy. But if Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. make a broad push against it, we could see legislative changes which protect them.

A likely scenario is something which indemnifies them against any losses incurred as a result of foreign suits related to privacy breaches, so long as they're in accordance with US law.

furyg3• 13 years ago

It will become a problem when European countries / organisations start requiring that data cannot be stored or managed at a US datacenter or by a US organisation.

You already see this happening with with datacenter locations...

narcissus• 13 years ago

If they were paying taxes in the US then maybe they could feel a little annoyed that the US might cause them business troubles elsewhere.

Instead, they're in that awful predicament where the senators they pay are screwing them, but the government as a representation of the people doesn't care.

rmc5• 13 years ago

A likely scenario is something which indemnifies them against any losses incurred as a result of foreign suits related to privacy breaches, so long as they're in accordance with US law.

But that would only work in USA. What if a court in Germany fines Google Germany Ltd €1,000,000, and €100,000 per day until they stop sharing data with the US Gov? Will the US government give Google €1,000,000 to pay off the fine? What if the court in Germany confiscates the Google Germany Ltd's property? Will the US Gov reimbuse Google? What if a court in Germany forces all German ISPs to block Google? Will the US Gov reimburse Google?

Remember this companies (Google/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook/etc.) have local companies, local offices, local property and local employees. They can ignore local law only if they leave the country.

pash2• 13 years ago

There is some precedent for how things might unfold in the kerfuffles that have resulted from the U.S. government's attempts to enforce its trade sanctions against countries like Cuba, Iran, and North Korea.

Under the Helms-Burton Act [0], the United States expanded its embargo on trade with Cuba to authorize sanctions against foreign firms that trade with Cuba. Mexico and the European Union responded [1] by forbidding their companies from complying with the U.S. law. This left those firms in the impossible situation of violating either U.S. or domestic law no matter what they did. After abortive attempts to negotiate a solution, nothing was done to resolve the situation, so Mexican and E.U. firms that trade with Cuba are still in a tricky situation.

As another example, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a bureau of the Treasury Department tasked with enforcing U.S. embargoes, for decades operated under the interpretation that foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations were not subject to limits on trade under U.S. sanctions laws so long as no U.S. persons were involved in conducting the banned trade.† But this past February, to strengthen U.S. sanctions against Iran, President Obama issued an executive order [2] that for the first time extended the U.S. government's claimed legal jurisdiction to encompass the actions of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations:

  All property and interests in property that are in the
  United States, that hereafter come within the United States,
  or that are or hereafter come within the possession or
  control of any United States person, INCLUDING ANY FOREIGN
  BRANCH, of the following persons are blocked and may not be
  transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt
  in ... [my emphasis]

Prior to that executive order, there was no indication that the U.S. government, even in matters of national security, claimed that foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations must comply with U.S. law. Under that longstanding interpretation, I would not have been surprised to see companies like Google make an effort to store foreign users' data in foreign data-centers owned and operated by foreign subsidiaries. That way, the data would not be subject to seizure under FISA (or whatever other authorization the NSA claims), and Google could comply with foreign privacy laws and U.S. law at the same time.

But now, it seems, that may be out the window. It may well be that the U.S. government claims jurisdiction over data held by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. tech companies, in which case those companies will truly be between a rock and a hard place. Unlike the situation with Helms-Burton, however, things will surely come to a head; these major corporations have extensive operations both in the United States and in the E.U., where domestic privacy laws would outlaw compliance with U.S. laws requiring that they turn over data to the NSA.

So this should be fun. ...

† — In this matter and others, the U.S. government claims jurisdiction over U.S. persons—citizens, greencard-holders, and companies incorporated in the United States—no matter where they are in the world.

0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms%E2%80%93Burton_Act

1. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-96-732_en.htm

2. http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/D... [PDF]

arethuza• 13 years ago

Google certainly appears to have at least one European subsidiary (Google UK Limited, Company #03977902) and I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't have subsidiaries in most European countries.

lifeformed• 13 years ago

I hope we can finally see big businesses use all their political clout for the public good for once (well, at least indirectly).

thenewkid• 13 years ago

The lawsuit targets the Irish subsidiary because that's where the money is. If they move they will probably pay higher taxes. Quite clever!

The group’s complaint draws on the precedent set in 2006, which found that a mass transfer of data to the US authorities was illegal under EU law... The Swift case was closed when the company moved its data centre from Belgium to Switzerland.

rmc5• 13 years ago

(a) It's not a lawsuit, but a complaint to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which is like a type of court. The DPC can force companies to reveal what they hold on people, and can require them to do (or not do) a thing if it breaks Irish data protection law.

(b) Facebook Ireland Ltd (an Irish company) was targetted, not because it's "where the money is", but because if you sign up to Facebook and you're not in the USA or Canada, then you have a legal relationship with Facebook Ireland Ltd, and fall under Irish data protection law.

(cf. section 19 of https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms )

pessimizer• 13 years ago

The DPC can force [Irish] companies to reveal what they hold on people, and can require them to do (or not do) a thing if it breaks Irish data protection law.
if you sign up to Facebook and you're not in the USA or Canada, then you have a legal relationship with Facebook Ireland Ltd, and fall under Irish data protection law.

Facebook can choose to change this, but they won't because they benefit from the double Irish; because that's "where the money is."

Fuxy• 13 years ago

Well this is going to be interesting. And don't forget guys this is the EU we're talking about not US. It is a lot more difficult for companies to make changes in their favor since every country has its on system and it's own ways. Just the amount of paper pushers in Europe is exponentially higher. Makes "convincing" any one of them less effective due to their limited power.

tomp• 13 years ago

Not really. The thing is, people in Europe want privacy, and will go to great lengths to retain it.

doctorwho• 13 years ago

It's going to come down to what kind of business the Irish company carries out on behalf of the parent company or whether the Irish company is the parent. There are so many ways the relationship could be set up and figuring it all out could take a loooong time. First they have to work that out before they can determine whether they are responsible for following EU law and what laws they are obliged to follow. The Irish company may not have anything to do with data which would pretty much let them off the hook I'm guessing.

rmc5• 13 years ago

Well anyone who signs up to Facebook who's not in USA or Canada is technically signing an agreement with Facebook Ireland Ltd. So, the Irish company is responsible for the data of hundreds of millions of Facebook users.

(cf. section 19 of https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms )

if_by_whisky• 13 years ago

This brings up an interesting issue with multinationals... How do you react when you receive compulsory orders in one country of operation that violates laws of another?

Aissen• 13 years ago

There's a solution to that. Do not store data from a customer from one country, in another region. Actually, the biggest european hosting company, OVH, is doing just that in order to launch in North America, and protect its European, Canadian, and USA customers: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

Complaint filed against Irish subsidiaries of Apple, Facebook

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