Ireland’s privacy regulator Data Protection Commission is potentially going to impose a record fine of more than €746 million euros on Meta. The fine is due to a violation of GDPR regulations, Bloomberg reports.
The tech giant faces the possible fine for unlawfully transferring user data to the US. This despite the fact that in 2020 the Privacy Shield treaty, which allowed the forwarding, was banned by the EU. According to the highest European Court of Justice, there was no guarantee that the U.S. would adequately safeguard the privacy of this data.
Shortcut
However, Meta is still using the still controversial “standard contractual clauses” or SSCs use to transfer user data. Through these SSCs, U.S. tech companies have a shortcut for data transfers. With these contracts, they can claim to have an agreement with end users for transferring data to the US.
Opponents always remained opposed to these SSCs and have now been heard by the Irish privacy regulator. This is because U.S. tech companies often have their European headquarters in Dublin.
Stopping SSCs
In addition to a fine, the Irish Data Protection Commission also wants to force Meta to stop the SSCs. For the tech giant, this will be an even bigger blow than the fine because it will put a bomb under its revenue model. Meta is threatening to stop these services if the SSCs are tampered with.
The fine could be imposed as early as this week and is much higher than Amazon’s current record of €746 million. However, Meta may get a transition period, according to Bloomberg. The tech giant can then give Meta new bases for data transfer. For example, after granting consent.
Also read: Meta fined €390 million for data processing in personalized ads