We may gain some extra transparency features on what is happening to our data from Facebook. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire

Are Ireland's biggest technology employers about to be ordered to split their US and European operations? Might Facebook friends in Boston no longer be allowed to receive messages from Facebook users here in Dublin?

These were among a couple of worst-case scenarios conjured up last week during hearings in the Europe vs Facebook privacy case in the European Court Of Justice.

The case is now boiling down to whether Europe will allow the US to keep hoovering up EU citizens' email and social media data in defiance of EU law. If not, what will happen? Will we actually step in with a virtual padlock on European Facebook and Gmail accounts?

To recap on what the case is about, an Austrian student called Max Schrems complained about Facebook to Ireland's data protection commissioner. He said that our Facebook data wasn't safe in the US because it's accessed by US authorities - according to Edward Snowden's leaks of NSA procedure.

The data commissioner said the issue was above his pay grade because it was a political one, decided by leaders of the US and the EU in the form of a treaty. So Schrems took it to the High Court here, which also decided that the matter was above its level and referred it to the ECJ.

Now the top European court looks set to decide on whether that treaty - called Safe Harbour - doesn't violate basic European privacy protections. Safe Harbour lets US firms like Facebook, Microsoft and Google transfer our data out of the privacy-focused EU to the weaker regulatory environment of the US if they promise to apply EU standards to that data.

But it's a self-certification process.

Schrems argues that it has clearly failed because US authorities have been hoovering up personal data, with apparent scant resistance, from the big social media companies.

He's not the only one.

"There is, perhaps, much to be said for the argument that the Safe Harbour regime has been overtaken by events," said High Court judge Gerard Hogan last year, when he referred the case to the ECJ. "The Edward Snowden revelations may be thought to have exposed gaping holes in the contemporary US data protection practice."

So now the court has to decide on it, once and for all.

So are Facebook, Twitter, Google and the other big tech firms located in Ireland all facing down the barrel of a judicial gun?

It seems unlikely. If the ECJ does come back with a ruling against Safe Harbour, who puts a block on our Facebook, Microsoft or Gmail account data going to the US?

Minister of State Dara Murphy?

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner?

The Irish High Court?

There appears to be no way of actually starting this process under current law.

But what could happen is that the issue gets kicked back to national data protection commissioners in the interim. That would place Ireland's commissioner, Helen Dixon, in a pivotal position.

If this happens, the recently appointed Dixon could find herself in the crossfire of a wider cultural and political issue: in interpreting sometimes vague EU rules, does Ireland default towards a more relaxed approach to data privacy (to the approval of the big tech companies located here)?

Or does it lean more toward stricter privacy implementation, led by Germany and a handful of other continental European countries, all the way up (potentially) to a block on data leaving Ireland for the US?

Here's a prediction: the relaxed position will ultimately win out.

Oh, there may be a reworded Safe Harbour treaty to give us a bit more comfort.

And the European Parliament will undoubtedly pass some non-binding resolution of outrage.

We may even gain some extra transparency features on what is happening to our data from Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Linkedin and others.

But the US is not going to stop gathering private data from social media and email companies.

And that is the heart of the issue.

That being the case, will Ireland start blocking email from here to New York or Silicon Valley?

Not a hope. And neither will Britain or most other European countries.

By highlighting the hypocrisy of Safe Harbour and the discrepancy in privacy standards between Europe and the US, Max Schrems is doing all of us a favour.

But ultimately, he is bound to be disappointed.

Sunday Indo Business