Austrian Supreme Court questioned the CJEU about the legal basis Facebook collects user data

In a case between Max Schrems and Facebook, the Austrian Supreme Court accepted Schrems’ request to refer several questions that raise fundamental doubts about the legal basis of Facebook’s data use to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Before the GDPR, Facebook required users to consent to their processing of personalized advertisements. Given the GDPR changed the requirements for consent to be valid and also allowed users to withdraw their consent at any time, Facebook no longer bases its decision on personalized advertisement on consent. Alternatively, Facebook says in its terms of use that consent clauses must be understood as a contract in which users order personalized advertising. With this strategy, Facebook strips users of rights related to consent under the GDPR, such as the requirements that consent should be freely given and informed. In addition, the Austrian court has referred another three questions on data minimization and sensitive data. In the same decision, the Austrian court ruled that Facebook should pay symbolic damages to Schrems for not giving him full access to his data.