New fine to Meta

The difference between the legal data protection systems between the United States and the European Union has once again led to a sanction, this time multimillion, from Ireland to Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram, in addition to WhatsApp) for infringing the right to privacy of at least 500 million users by transferring data to the North American country without sufficient guarantees. The 1,200 million euros mean the highest fine imposed on a technology company for this reason, after the 780 million with which Ireland already sanctioned Amazon in 2021 for similar causes, which are added to three other fines to the same Meta in the last six months, of 400, 265 and 390 million euros. The total fines imposed on Meta from the country in which it has its legal residence for reasons of favorable taxation (like other large technology companies) amounts to about 2,255 million euros.

The Irish Data Protection Commission also imposes the requirement that within the next five months Facebook cease the transfer of data of local users to the United States and also adds the obligation to delete all shared information, despite the technical complexity alleged by the company. Ireland's first fines came already forced by pressure from European regulators and the body that groups them all, the European Data Protection Board, which pressured Ireland to raise around 10 times the amount initially planned. However, it has been the president of the European regulators, Andrea Jelinek, who has warned of the "far-reaching consequences" that data transfers to the US of European users will have when they are, as in this case, "systematic, repetitive and continuous". The material scope of the fine, however, is above all reputational, given that the company entered in the first quarter of this year around 29,000 million dollars.

It is probably no coincidence that this sanction has come on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the entry into force, on May 25, 2018, of the new European Union regulation on data protection that gives regulators in the 27 EU member countries the power to impose fines of up to 4% of a company's annual revenue for the most serious infringements. The fact that there is indeed a clash of legislation on access to data in the US and privacy regulation in the EU does not allow us to violate the legislation in force in Europe.

The current collision explains the urgency for Brussels to approve as soon as possible the agreement between the US and the EU to transfer data between continents, under negotiation, after the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the previous agreement in 2020 for "fear of interference" in the fundamental rights of people. The company's argument, according to which the internet could end up divided into national bubbles and prevent citizens' access to shared services, is one more reason to promote legislation that provides legal certainty to technology companies while their services do not violate the right to privacy, especially when this right seeks to preserve the user from advertising campaigns generated by algorithms based on searches and The user's browsing history. The advertising business that feeds companies like Meta cannot be the one that determines the rights of citizens.