The decision of the Court of Justice in Schrems follows the Digital Rights Ireland and Google Spain stances in the Court process of revisiting the data protection framework in Europe in light of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Through the invalidation of Decision 2000/520/EC of the Commission on the adequacy of the US safe harbor principles, the Court of Justice has relied on a very extensive interpretation of the right to private life and data protection. As in the former decisions that have let emerge the existence of a new digital right to privacy, this judgment mirrors some degree of manipulation by the Court of Justice, justified by the goal of protecting as much as possible personal data in the new technological environment.
Full Professor of Constitutional Law and Media Law, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy;
Post-Doctoral Emile Noël Fellow, The Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice NYU School of Law.
