Meet Max Schrems, the law student who took on the US tech giants and brought down a transatlantic data pact

Few in America’s Silicon Valley could have predicted that a young Austrian law graduate who spent a semester studying there would one day become high-tech companies’ worst nightmare.

Yet that’s exactly what Max Schrems achieved on Tuesday when the European Union’s top court ruled in his favour, declaring that a key transatlantic data deal relied on by giant corporations such as Facebook was invalid in the light of widespread spying revealed by the Edward Snowden scandal.

The verdict strikes down the so-called Safe Harbour pact signed between the European Commission and the United States in 2000, allowing American companies to transfer data from the EU to the US as long as they ensured adequate levels of protection.

But for Schrems, who turns 28 this month, the agreement failed to live up to its promise in the wake of details leaked by former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Snowden.

According to the American whistleblower, the NSA had access to users’ data on Facebook and other US tech companies. Although the firms have denied the allegations, the scandal has nevertheless opened a can of worms and helped pave the way for Schrems’ legal victory.