The European Union (EU) fined the Meta technology group 1.2 billion euros for violations related to data protection and restricted the digital transfer of information between both sides of the Atlantic until October.
This is the largest fine imposed on the sector by the EU since data protection regulations were adopted five years ago, exceeding the fine applied to the Amazon company in 2021 by 746 million euros for data breach.
The digital platform Meta, which integrates Facebook, Instagram and the WhatsApp messaging system – which had previously warned that services could be cut for users in Europe – announced Monday that it will appeal and ask the courts to “immediately suspend” the decision. .
“Facebook is not suffering immediate riots in Europe,” says the North American multinational.
“This decision is wrong, unjustified, and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies that transfer data between the EU and the US,” read a joint statement from Nick Clegg, Meta’s president for International Affairs, and Jennifer Newstead, company director. Legal department.
This Monday’s decision is emerging as one more episode of the legal battle that began in 2013, when the Austrian lawyer Max Schrems filed a complaint about the processing of personal data by the digital platform Facebook, after the revelations of the former security operator United States national. (NSA), Edward Snowden, on electronic surveillance by US security agencies.
Snowden revealed at the time that the Facebook platform gave US intelligence and surveillance services access to the personal data of European users.
The case highlighted the confrontation between Washington and Brussels over the differences between the vision seen as “rigorous” in Europe on data privacy and the more permissive regime in the United States, which does not have a federal law on privacy in digital media. .
An agreement on data transfer between the EU and the United States, known as the Privacy Protection Shield, was considered void in 2020 by the legal bodies of the European Union, for not acting sufficiently on data protection.
The decision known this Monday confirms that another instrument to regulate data transfers – the “stock market legal contracts” – is not valid either.
Brussels and Washington signed an agreement on the “Privacy Shield” last year, reformulating the pact and providing that the Meta company could use it, but a decision is still awaited from Brussels on whether it adequately protects data privacy.
EU institutions have been reviewing the deal, with EU lawmakers this month calling for “further improvements”, saying the safeguards are not strong enough.
Thus, the Irish Data Protection Commission applies the fine as the main privacy regulatory body for Meta in the European bloc, since the European headquarters of the technology giant Silicon Valley is based in Dublin.
The Irish watchdog stated that it had given Meta five months to stop sending European user data to the United States and six months to carry out “compliant” data operations that “stop unlawful processing, including storing , in the United States” from European users. personal data (in violation of the privacy regulations of the European Union).
Other social media giants face pressure over data practices.
TikTok has tried to assuage “Western fears” about possible cybersecurity risks of the PRC social network by sharing short videos with a $1.5 billion project to store US user data on Oracle servers (a system developed since the 1970s, today with resources available in the cloud and in software, the goal is to store, organize and process data securely).
Source: TSF
