By Laura McGuire
Meta, the owner of Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp, has been slapped with a record €1.2bn (£1bn) fine by the Ireland’s data protection agency over its transfer of European users’ Facebook data to its US server.
The Data Protection Commission has also ordered it to suspend all transfers of user data to the US.
The regulator found the social media giant had breached the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when it continued to transfer personal data from Europe to the US after a court ruling last year condemned the action.
Meta has said that it will appeal the “unjustified” and “unnecessary” ruling by the Irish regulator.
“Meta uses the same legal mechanisms as other organisations,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said noting that thousands of businesses and organisations rely on the “ability to transfer data between the EU and the US to operate and provide everyday services”.
Clegg said: “Without the ability to transfer data across borders, the internet risks being carved up into national and regional silos, restricting the global economy and leaving citizens in different countries unable to access many of the shared services we have come to rely on.”
Meta, which was founded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, has also previously threatened to suspend its services in the EU if it could not continue using its tools to transfer the data.
This is not the first time the Irish watchdog has fined Meta. In January, the regulator handed subsidiary Whatsapp a €5.5m (£4.8m) fine for an additional breach of its privacy laws.
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