It is the largest privacy fine ever imposed in Europe. European Union regulators want it to be legally impossible for Facebook to send European user data to the US. They fear that these could fall into the hands of US intelligence.
A strict privacy law known as AVG applies in Europe. With these rules, Europe wants to prevent the misuse of Europeans’ privacy-sensitive data. Privacy laws in the US are much less strict.
Andrea Jelinek, head of the European privacy watchdog, says the privacy breach committed by Meta is “extremely serious”. “Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transfer is huge.”
According to Jelinek, the unprecedented fine is a strong signal to companies that serious violations can have far-reaching consequences.
Metta has already received several fines this year
Earlier this year, Meta was already fined €390 million by the Irish privacy regulator, the Data Privacy Commissioner (DPC). The company received a fine for the way user data was used for personalized advertising.
That’s not the first penalty. For example, in September the DPC fined Meta subsidiary Instagram 405 million euros and already in November Meta was fined 265 million euros.
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