Max Schrems, a 26-year-old Austrian law student, filed a class action suit against Facebook due to multiple privacy violations, and is urging other users to join.
The class action suit filed in Austria's commercial court detailed numerous violations committed by the social networking giant. Schrems included in his complaint information about Facebook's participation in the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) PRISM movement, a clandestine mass electronic data surveillance program launched by the agency in 2007, which was revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The suit requested 500 euros, or $670 worth of damages for every user who joined the lawsuit.
"We have this habit of pointing the finger at the United States, but we're not enforcing our rights anyway," Schrems told Reuters. "If we can get a class action through like this, it will send out a huge signal to the industry overall."
Adult Facebook users outside of Canada or the United States also have the option of participating in the class action suit. However, one must be willing to come forward and enlist in the action suit through Facebook's login button, which will verify the user's eligibility to join. An hour after launching the class action suit, 100 users have hopped on board.
"We want to show to the U.S. industry that they have to respect [European] fundamental rights if they want to do business in Europe," Schrems told Mashable. "We love the technology, but we want to be able to use things without permanent worry for our privacy."
Schrems is one of the most prominent critics of Facebook. The law student once asked a European court to have Facebook submit all of the information they have about him. After the court ruled in his favor, Facebook gave him 1,222 pages worth of information. He also filed a suit in 2012 urging Facebook to stop its photo-tagging feature, complaining that facial recognition software violated user privacy laws.
Facebook has not released a statement on the new lawsuit filed by the Austrian law student.
