Peter Swire, Elizabeth and Thomas Holder Chair at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business and senior counsel at Alston & Bird, has made public his expert testimony from the landmark Irish High Court Case Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook Ireland Limited & Maximillian Schrems. Under the Irish Court’s rules, Swire was asked to provide an independent opinion on U.S. surveillance law to assist the Court in its decision. Swire’s testimony highlights U.S. systemic remedies, U.S. individual remedies, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court oversight, and the broader implications of the challenge to standard contractual clauses.
Supporting Swire’s work on the testimony were a number of Alston & Bird attorneys on the Privacy & Data Security and National Security & Digital Crimes teams, led by Jim Harvey with assistance from Dan Felz, Justin Hemmings, DeBrae Kennedy-Mayo, and Suzanne Vergnolle.
A full copy of the testimony, including a French translation of the summary chapter, and a series of related essays are available here. An article by Swire summarizing his testimony is available at Lawfare. The testimonies of other witnesses in the case are available at IAPP.org.
More information on the Alston & Bird Privacy & Data Security team is available here. More information on the Alston & Bird National Security & Digital Crimes team is available here.