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Meta’s Facebook is in the spotlight again after how it handled EU citizens’ data, resulting in a rather large fine. This issue has made the EU fine Meta a whopping $1.3 billion over the Facebook data, which is the highest the company has had to pay. Such a fine won’t be given to any company without ample evidence and proof that the company broke some laws.
Sources of this information say that the fine came after “a lengthy investigation” found Meta guilty of violating a privacy rule. Regarding user data, the EU requires big tech firms to operate all EU citizen data within the region. But a series of investigations point out that Facebook has been moving user data out of the EU region, hence violating the user data policy.
To enforce their privacy law and punish violators, the EU is now imposing a $1.3 billion fine on Meta. But why these strict laws, and is there any threat if EU citizens’ data gets to other regions? In this article, we will look into this issue and the reason the EU demands these strict data regulations.
The reason behind the EU fine on Meta’s Facebook data transfers
In a bid to protect their citizens’ data, the EU came up with the bloc’s key digital privacy rules. This rule requires the data of EU citizens to be handled within servers located within the EU. With this rule in place, companies operating within the EU with access to user data can’t transfer this data to other regions.
For these companies, moving user data across a wide range of servers is quite easy. But, this action is risky as it exposes user data to regions with little or no user data regulations. In these regions, user data might not be safe, hence leading to threats to various cyberattacks.
Over the past few years, the EU has been beefing up its data protection regulations for its citizens. These regulations aim to protect their users from any element aiming to tamper with their data stored with big tech firms. But for some reason, Facebook, despite being aware of the bloc’s key digital privacy rules, moved data from EU servers to US servers.
Data protection regulations in the US aren’t as strict as they are in the EU, hence leaving certain loopholes. Meta’s actions put the data of EU citizens at risk of getting into the wrong hands. But despite the already existing EU-US Privacy Shield, moving data from the EU to the US isn’t advisable.
The court in charge of this case ruled the EU-US Privacy Shield as being invalid. For now, the Ireland Data Protection Commission requires that Meta’s Facebook stay clear of any data transfer for the next five months. Within this period, the EU, and the US can work on protecting data transferred between both regions.