Tech giant Meta has been hit with a record fine for transferring Facebook user data from Europe to the United States. According to the regulator's decision, the company has to pay a fine of EUR 1 billion 200 million for violating the Eurosup privacy rules.
Source. This was reported by the European Data Protection Board.
The fine was imposed after Meta continued to transfer data following a 2020 EU court ruling that invalidated the EU-US data transfer agreement. This exceeds the previous record EU fine for privacy violations of €746 million imposed by Luxembourg on Amazon.com in 2021.
This is the largest fine imposed under the EU privacy rules, which was announced just days before the fifth anniversary of the rules' entry into force.
"The Meta breach is very serious because it involves the systematic and ongoing transfer of data. Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the amount of personal data transferred is enormous. The unprecedented fine is a strong indication that serious violations have far-reaching consequences," Andrea Jelinek, the head of the European Data Protection Board, wrote in a statement.
The proceedings in the Facebook case were led by the Irish Data Protection Commission. The investigation lasted since 2020.
Meta said it intends to appeal the decision because it is "flawed, unjustified, and sets a dangerous precedent."
EU regulators have already fined Meta four times for data leaks by its Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook services.