Overview

• The Administrative Court of Cologne ruled on July 22 that the Federal Press Office may continue using its Facebook fan pages, overturning the 2023 ban imposed by the Federal Data Protection Commissioner.
• The court determined that Facebook’s parent company Meta is solely responsible for securing GDPR-compliant user consent for cookies on official pages.
• Judges ruled there is no sufficient causal link between the government’s operation of the fan pages and Meta’s cookie-based data collection.
• The decision highlights a dispute over jurisdiction between Germany’s national data protection authority and Meta’s oversight by Irish regulators.
• The ruling is open to appeal at the Higher Administrative Court in Münster.