In a significant decision, the Austrian Data Protection Authority (DPA) has decided using Facebook’s tracking pixel directly violates the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) following the Schrems II ruling on transatlantic data flows by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The DPAs decision stems from the 101 complaints filed against European companies by Austrian privacy group NOYB in August 2020 for continuing to send user data to Facebook and Google despite the CJEU having struck down the Privacy Shield agreement in July 2020.
In a statement, Max Schrems, Honorary Chair of NOYB, said, “Facebook has pretended that its commercial customers can continue to use its technology, despite two Court of Justice judgments saying the opposite. Now the first regulator told a customer that the use of Facebook tracking technology is illegal.”
While the DPA did not confirm whether a penalty had been issued, the decision is relevant to all EU websites that use Facebook's tracking technology to deliver targeted advertisements.
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