In principle, the Dutch court has jurisdiction to rule on the lawsuit that the Consumers’ Association has filed with the Data Privacy Foundation (DPS) against Facebook. This is evident from a recent judgment of the Amsterdam District Court. The Consumers’ Association and DPS demand in a case that was brought in last year that Facebook pays Dutch users compensation for privacy violations.
Facebook objected on procedural grounds. The company stated that the Dutch court has no jurisdiction to rule on it and that DPS is inadmissible. Dutch law would also not apply. Furthermore, Facebook wanted the outcome of other lawsuits to be awaited first and it wanted to be able to appeal in the meantime pending a ruling.
On all these counts, Facebook’s claims have now been rejected by the court. This clears the way for the substantive hearing of the case, which starts on 20 October.
Legal Bumps
The Consumers’ Association and DPS are happy. “A big boost for the more than 10 million victims”, Sandra Molenaar director of the Consumers’ Association calls the verdict. According to her, Facebook “tried to throw up all kinds of legal hurdles and delay the case as much as possible”. She is glad that attempt failed. “Now we can really get to work and ensure that consumers get what they are entitled to.”
DPS chairman Dick Bouma calls it an important first step. “The ruling shows that it pays to take a collective stand against tech giants that flout privacy rights.”
Facebook says in a response that protecting privacy is important to the company. “Users have control over the data they share and we are transparent about how it is used.” In addition, the company points out that Facebook users can access, download or delete their own information.
185,000 people
The Consumers’ Association and DPS have sued Facebook for collecting users’ private data and making it accessible to third parties without permission. In addition to information about gender, age and place of residence, this also concerned the apps that were used, information about Facebook friends and surfing behavior outside the platform. The subpoenas relate to the period from 2010 to 2020.
The Consumers’ Association and DPS have asked Facebook users to join the case. About 185,000 people have now done so and the counter is still rising, according to the Consumers’ Association. Incidentally, it is not the case that compensation is only requested for people who have joined the claim. It is not yet known what amounts will be demanded.
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