The owner of Facebook and Instagram, Meta, has been handed a record fine by the Irish Data Protection Commission.
It's being ordered to pay €1. billion for breaching the privacy of its EU-based customers, by sending information from its European servers to US servers.
The case dates back to a legal challenge brought by Austrian privacy campaigner, Max Schrems, who raised concerns over Edward Snowden’s revelations that EU users’ data is not sufficiently protected from US intelligence agencies when it's transferred from Europe to the US.
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
Meta says it will appeal the fine.
In a statement issued this morning, the company said we are disappointed to have been singled out when using the same legal mechanism as thousands of other companies looking to provide services in Europe.”
“This decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and the US.”
