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Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros by the top privacy regulator in the European Union for its handling of user data and given five months to stop transferring their data to the United States.
For the “continuous” transfer of personal data from European Facebook users to the United States, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) punished Meta Platforms, parent of this and other social networks such as Instagram and WhatsApp.
The regulator accused the multinational of infringing the privacy of its users through Facebook, with data ranging from names, email and IP addresses, messages and viewing history, to geolocation. Both Meta and other tech giants use that information for online ads.
“Meta’s infringement is very serious as it involves transfers that are systematic, repetitive and continuous. Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is enormous,” said Andrea Jelinek, president of the European Data Protection Board, whose binding concept served as the basis for making the decision.
“The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organizations that serious breaches have far-reaching consequences,” added the Board, which also recommended an order to Meta to stop transferring its users’ personal information by October. .
Following the EDPB’s binding dispute resolution decision, Meta Platforms Ireland Limited was issued a 1.2 billion euro fine as a result of an inquiry into its Facebook service by the Irish DPA – the largest GDPR fine to date! Read all about it here: https://t.co/ti4iFMm73M pic.twitter.com/iJnKZNMp1x
—EDPB (@EU_EDPB) May 22, 2023
Facebook and a mess of old data for the use of personal data
Washington and Brussels have serious differences between Europe’s strict view on data privacy and the comparatively lax regime in the United States, which lacks a federal privacy law.
The European Union, moreover, has led the global battle to control the power of ‘Big Tech’ with a series of regulations that oblige them to monitor their platforms more strictly and protect users’ personal information.
In the specific case of Facebook, the long-running data storage battle began in 2003, when Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems filed a legal challenge over the spying risk of the United States, in light of revelations from Facebook’s former contractor. National Security Agency, Edward Snowden.
Washington and Brussels have been working on a new pact to facilitate the secure transfer of personal data from bloc citizens to the United States and hope to have it ready next summer.
“We hope that this data protection framework will be fully functional by the summer. This will guarantee stability and legal certainty,” a spokesman for the European Commission told a daily press conference.
today’s @DPCIreland decision is not about one company’s privacy practices – there is a fundamental conflict of law between the US government’s rules on access to data & European privacy rights, which policymakers are expected to resolve in the summer. See our blog here:…
—Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) May 22, 2023
Meta, for its part, anticipated in a statement that it will appeal the ruling. “This decision is flawed, unjustified, and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies that transfer data between the EU and the US,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, and Jennifer Newstead, head of office, said in a statement. legal.
The €1.2 billion penalty is the biggest since the European Union’s strict data privacy regime came into effect five years ago, surpassing Amazon’s €746 million fine in 2021 for data protection violations.
With Reuters, EFE and AP
