The case in question, based on an Austrian complaint from May 2018, was about whether Facebook and Instagram, both part of Meta, have to make clear to users what they are doing and seek extra permission and offer an opt-out to detailed data collection that still allows user access.
The EDPB report lists “relevant and reasoned” challenges filed by Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Austrian, Finnish and German national regulators to an Irish draft decision. To resolve the regulator deadlock, the EDPB voted to overrule the DPC, ordered it to throw out its original decision and implement instead the findings of the higher body.
In a press release last week, the DPC said a “subset” of European regulators objected to existing Facebook/Instagram data collection policies.This week it declined to say how many other European regulators agreed with its legal stance on the disputed contracts-consent issue. Germany’s federal regulator Ulrich Kelber welcomed the decision, saying, “It’s no secret we thought some investigations were taking too long.”