Facebook is to ask the High Court on Tuesday to join it to the judicial review proceedings taken by Austrian student Max Schrems against the Data Protection Commissioner.

The major privacy case involving Mr Schrems’s complaint against Facebook has been referred back to the High Court by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The judicial review proceedings are for mention in the court list.

Earlier this month, the ECJ ruled that the 15-year old Safe Harbour arrangement - which allowed about 4,500 US companies to transfer personal data to the US - violated EU citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy and data protection.

The ruling followed a complaint brought by Mr Schrems to the Irish commissioner in 2013. He made the complaint after former NSA security contractor Edward Snowden claimed Facebook and other US firms were being forced to make their personal information - including EU user data - available to US intelligence.

The commissioner’s office found it had no case to investigate as Safe Harbour, and its implementation, was solely a matter for the European Commission.

Mr Schrems took a judicial review at the High Court, which in turn asked the ECJ in Luxembourg for clarity.

On Tuesday, October 6th, the ECJ ruled in favour of Mr Schrems and found the Irish body was not precluded, as it had claimed, from investigating his original complaint.

Facebook had not previously asked to join the proceedings as they had not involved an examination of its data transfers to the US.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said on Monday: “We will request an opportunity to join the proceedings in the Irish High Court where the Irish DPC’s investigation is to be discussed. We believe it is critical that we join the proceedings so that we can provide accurate information about our procedures and processes, as well as to correct inaccuracies that already exist.”

Privacy rights body Digital Rights Ireland was previously joined to the Schrems case as an amicus curiae, or ‘friend of the court’, but is not a party to the proceedings.