Californians with an ear to the privacy ground have probably seen mention of the Schrems II case working its way through European courts. While we wait for what could be a groundbreaking decision, let’s take a look back at the history of this case and why it is so important to the international privacy community.

The story of Schrems II begins, unsurprisingly, with Schrems I. Long story short, the Data Protection Directive, the predecessor to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the European Union’s recent privacy law, put strict regulations regarding data collection, retention, and use, on European Economic Area (EEA) companies and companies processing the data of people in the EEA.