EU fines Facebook's Parent Company $1.3 Billion for Data Privacy Violations

The European Union has hit Facebook's parent company, Meta, with its biggest ever fine for privacy violations, to the tune of $1.3 billion. The Irish Data Protection Commission, which handed down the order, said the transfers violated the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The ruling gives Meta five months to put in place measures to halt future transfers of personal data to the United States and six months to stop “the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US of personal data of EU/EEA users transferred in violation of the GDPR.”

This is the largest GDPR fine ever handed down, surpassing the previous record of $887 million against Amazon in 2021. It has huge implications for any company transferring data between the EU and US, and puts further pressure on the US to reach a new data transfer treaty. The Privacy Shield treaty, which protected data transfers until 2020, was invalidated by the EU’s highest court as it did not sufficiently protect E.U. citizens’ data from American spy agencies.

President Biden and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union, announced the outlines of a deal last year, but the details are still being hammered out, and the complexity of the issues makes it difficult to move quickly. Facebook said it plans to appeal the decision, claiming it is “flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and US.” This ruling applies only to Facebook and not other Meta-owned platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp.

Originally reported by Martech: https://martech.org/eu-fines-facebook-1-3-billion-for-privacy-violations/
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