Mr. Max Schrems:

I am mindful of time. The term "resolved" is also one of my biggest questions in life. There seems to be a sort of Bermuda triangle somewhere. We have heard from people involved in cases that the DPC no longer comes back to them but rather says that it will not investigate the matter further. We have seen random answers in emails or have been told about them. If one looks at the numbers, these are the cases that must be categorised as resolved. That is my understanding of the terminology. There is a problem there.

With regard to the clarifications, I am mindful of how long the courts can take. I have been involved in litigation for eight years now. Court proceedings are probably not the easiest way in which to clarify matters. There are certain parts of the Irish Data Protection Acts that could be clarified such as procedural issues with regard to the steps involved and how long things can take. There could be options there. It is common in other jurisdictions for these things to be clarified in the legislation.

The other option is for the DPC to have a multi-stakeholder hearing and to clarify its procedures itself. There is some beauty to that idea because the commission knows what it is doing procedurally, at least with regard to the steps involved. There are publications which say there are 12 steps to the procedure and others which say there are six. Now there is litigation in which the commission has said that it is a one-step procedure. That is exactly what Facebook used in its judicial review as regards the DPC. It said that it did not even know what the procedure is, so it is all unfair. Unless that is clarified in that way, it may be quicker to clarify it in law or in instruments issued by the DPC itself rather than by putting it to the courts.