New Delhi: Facebook owner META Platform Inc was hit with a record $1.3 billion European Union privacy fine and regulators said it will stop sending user data to the US after it failed to protect personal information from American prying eyes. A deadline was given.
The Irish Data Protection Commission said the social network giant’s continued data transfers to the US did not address the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms of people whose data was being transferred across the Atlantic. On top of the fine, which eclipses a 746 million euro EU privacy fine previously handed down to Amazon.com Inc. Meta was given five months to suspend any future transfer of personal data to the US and six months to stop. The processing, including storage in the US, of transferred personal EU data is illegal.
The ban on data transfers was widely expected and once prompted a US firm to threaten a complete withdrawal from the EU. However, the potential impact is now muted by the transition phase and the prospect of a new EU-US data flow agreement that could already be operational by the middle of this year. Monday’s decision is the latest round in a long-running saga that has finally seen Facebook and thousands of other companies plunge into legal limbo. In 2020, the EU’s service court annulled the EU-US treaty regulating transatlantic data flows. While citizens’ data was not safe once it arrived on US servers.
While judges did not strike down an alternative tool based on contractual clauses, Irish authorities told Facebook it could no longer move data to the US through this alternative method, citing its doubts about American data protection. Meta said he would appeal the Irish decision. will describe it as flawed and unreasonable. The company also promised to suspend the ban orders immediately. Saying that they will harm the millions of people who use Facebook every day.
Nick Clegg, global president of Meta, says the internet is carved into national and regional silos that restrict data transfer. It restricts the global economy and makes citizens of different countries unable to access all the shared services we rely on. Affairs and Jennifer Newstead, chief legal officer, said in a blog post.