The Australian Information Commissioner, Angelene Falk is to be allowed to serve legal documents on United-States-based Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland following a Federal Court ruling.
Ms Falk lodged proceedings against the two entities in the Federal Court, alleging the Facebook social media platform had committed serious and/or repeated interferences with privacy in contravention of Australian privacy law.
According to the Court’s judgement the Commissioner alleged that from 12 March 2014 to 1 May 2015, Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland “did an act, or engaged in a practice, that was a serious or repeated interference with the privacy of approximately 311,127 Australian Facebook users”.
“The documents which the Commissioner seeks leave to serve are the originating application, the concise statement, the statement of claim, the interlocutory application, the various affidavits relied upon, the written submissions and the orders of the Court on the hearing of the interlocutory application together with these reasons for judgment,” the ruling said.
The Court ruled that material submitted by the Commissioner “demonstrates a genuine argument about contravention, sufficient to justify causing the respondents to be subject to the litigation in Australia where the merit of that argument can be judicially determined”.
Ms Falk welcomed the Court’s ruling, saying it opened the path for the case to move forward to the substance of the proceedings.
