Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) by the European Union’s top privacy regulator for improper handling of user data and given five months to stop transferring user data to the US.
The fine was imposed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) after Meta continued to transfer data after a 2020 EU court ruling invalidated a data transfer agreement between the EU and the US.
It exceeds the previous EU privacy fine record of 746 million euros imposed by Luxembourg on Amazon.com Inc in 2021.
The fight over where Meta’s Facebook stores its data began a decade ago, when Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems filed a legal challenge over the risk of US snooping in light of disclosures by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
In a statement, Meta said it will appeal the decision, including the “unjustified and unnecessary fine that sets a dangerous precedent for countless other companies.” It will also ask the courts to stay the suspension orders.
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The social media giant reiterated that it expected a new pact facilitating the safe transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the US to be fully implemented before suspending transfers.
That means the company’s previous warning that a strike would force it to suspend Facebook services in Europe would not come true.
“Without the ability to transfer data across borders, the internet risks being carved up into national and regional silos,” Meta explained.
In a statement, Meta said it will appeal the decision, including the “unjustified and unnecessary fine that sets a dangerous precedent for countless other companies.” It will also ask the courts to stay the suspension orders.
The social media giant reiterated that it expected a new pact facilitating the safe transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the US to be fully implemented before suspending transfers.
That means the company’s previous warning that a strike would force it to suspend Facebook services in Europe would not come true.
“Without the ability to transfer data across borders, the internet risks being carved up into national and regional silos,” Meta explained.
Because many of the world’s top technology companies have their European headquarters in Ireland, the Irish watchdog has stated that the suspension order could set a precedent for other firms.
It has now fined Meta a total of 2.5 billion euros for violations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect in 2018.
The DPC stated that it did not intend to include a fine in the suspension order at first, but four other EU supervising authorities disagreed, and the record fine was added following a ruling by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
The Irish regulator has fined Meta the most of any technology company and has opened ten other investigations into the social media platform.
