No Obligation For Facebook Switzerland To Disclose User Data In Criminal Proceedings

In a decision rendered on November 16, 2016, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court ruled that Facebook Switzerland cannot be obliged by state prosecutors of the Canton of Vaud to transfer data on a Facebook-account supposedly set up in Switzerland. The highest court in Switzerland held that Facebook Switzerland is not the owner of the requested data as it has no control over the data. The state prosecutors were told that the they should have lodged a request for international legal assistance targeting at the end of the day Facebook Ireland

In 2015, the state prosecutors' of the Canton of Vaud initiated a criminal proceeding for defamation following a criminal complaint filed by a Belgian journalist. The journalist claimed that a person using a pseudonym had published antisemitic remarks on a Facebook-account opened up in