Facebook's parent company, Meta, has been slapped with a record-breaking fine of 1.2 billion euros by the European Union (EU) for transferring user data to the United States. The EU has also issued an order for Meta to halt the transfer of data. While this is considered a significant victory for privacy, Meta intends to challenge the fine through legal action.
The massive fine of 1.2 billion euros against Facebook is the result of the efforts of two prominent figures, Max Schrems and Edward Snowden. Schrems had previously sued Facebook for transferring personal data of EU citizens to the US, while Snowden exposed the ease with which US intelligence agencies could access data from US-based platforms like Meta, which violates the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
A decade after Snowden's revelations, Facebook has finally been hit with a substantial fine of 1.2 billion euros for potentially compromising the data of EU citizens by sharing it with US intelligence agencies. Following pressure from the EU, the Irish data protection authority (DPC) imposed this record-breaking penalty on the social media giant
The fine imposed by the DPC far surpasses the previous record of 746 million euros set by Luxembourg in 2022, which was issued against Amazon.
The basis for this fine stems from a complaint lodged by Austrian data protection activist Max Schrems, who persistently demanded repercussions for the violations exposed by Snowden. Schrems took the case all the way to the European Court of Justice, resulting in the court deeming the Privacy Shield agreement between the US and the EU as illegal.
The underlying reasons for invalidating the Privacy Shield agreement remain pertinent. The concern lies in the fact that US laws do not sufficiently safeguard the data of European citizens, as US surveillance programs extend beyond what is strictly necessary.
Consequently, Meta is now required to cease any further transfer of European personal data to the United States, as the company remains subject to US surveillance laws. The Silicon Valley tech giant has been granted a six-month grace period to comply with this ruling.
Meta believes it has been unfairly penalized and has announced its intention to appeal. In a statement sent to SPIEGEL, Facebook stated, "This issue is not solely about a company's data protection practices - it represents a fundamental legal conflict between US government regulations on data access and European data protection rights, which policymakers are expected to address during the summer."
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