Meta is expected to face a record fine from the European Union on Monday for privacy violations when the Irish data protection watchdog confirms that the social media platform mishandled user data when transferring it to the United States.

 

The penalty will exceed the previous record fine of 746 million euros (USD 821.20 million) imposed on Amazon.

 

The decision by the Irish Data Protection Commission, which is the main privacy regulator for Facebook and its owner Meta throughout the EU, is also expected to halt the transfer of European Facebook user data to the United States.

 

According to The Guardian, the decision is unlikely to take immediate effect as Meta is expected to be granted a grace period to comply, which could delay any suspension by several months, and the company is expected to appeal the decision.

 

The ruling pertains to a complaint filed by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, following Edward Snowden's revelations that European user data is not sufficiently protected from US intelligence agencies when transferred across the Atlantic.

 

Schrems, an Austrian privacy advocate, accused Facebook of failing to protect his privacy rights, triggering a decade-long battle over the legality of transferring EU data to the United States.

 

The European Court of Justice has repeatedly stated that Washington lacks sufficient safeguards to protect Europeans' personal information, and the US recently updated its domestic legal protections to provide greater assurances to the EU that US intelligence agencies will comply with the new rules governing data access.

 

In 2020, Nick Clegg, Meta's head of policy, stated that suspending data transfers based on standard contractual clauses (SCCs) - the mechanism used by Facebook - could have "far-reaching effects on businesses that rely on SCCs and the online services that many people and companies depend on."

 

In Meta's latest quarterly results, the company stated that without SCCs, it "likely could not offer some of its most important products and services in Europe, such as Facebook and Instagram."

 

The Irish data protection watchdog has already fined Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, nearly 1 billion euros since September 2021. It also regulates Apple, Google, TikTok, and other tech platforms headquartered in Ireland.

 


In November of last year, Meta was fined 265 million euros by the regulatory body following a breach that resulted in the online publication of data from over 500 million users. This came weeks after a 405 million euro fine for allowing teenagers to create Instagram accounts that publicly displayed their phone numbers and email addresses.

 

Johnny Ryan, a member of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and advocate for greater protection of internet users' data, stated that an economic penalty exceeding 746 million euros would not be sufficient if Facebook did not radically change its data-driven business model. "A billion-euro fine means nothing to a company that illegally parks many more billions," he said.