LONDON – The European Union on Monday handed Meta a record $1.3 billion privacy fine and ordered it to stop transferring user data across the Atlantic, a new chapter in a saga that has dragged on for a long time. Cyber espionage.
The €1.2 billion fine imposed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is the largest since the EU’s stricter data privacy rules came into force five years ago, and follows the €1.2 billion claim Amazon will face in 2021 for breaching data protection rules. is over 746 million.
The Irish agency is Meta’s main privacy regulator in the 27-nation bloc as the Silicon Valley company has its European headquarters in Dublin.
Meta, which warned it could cut services for its users in Europe, appealed and asked the courts to immediately suspend the decision.
“Facebook in Europe is not being shut down immediately,” the company said.
“This decision is flawed, unfair and sets a dangerous precedent for the myriad other companies that transfer data between the EU and the US,” said Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, and Jennifer Newsted, the company’s chief legal officer. This is a statement.
It’s a new twist in a legal battle that began in 2013, when Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems sued Facebook over the way it handled his data following US cyber-espionage revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. did.
