Meta Fined €1.2 Billion for EU Data Transfers to US Servers

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has been hit with a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) fine by European regulators. The fine was imposed for transferring data of Facebook's European Union users to servers in the United States.

The penalty was announced on Monday by the European Data Protection Board, following an investigation into Facebook by the Irish Data Protection Commission, the principal privacy regulator overseeing Meta’s operations in Europe.

This fine represents the largest ever imposed under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe's leading data privacy law.

Andrea Jelinek, chair of the European Data Protection Board, highlighted the gravity of the infringement, noting that it involved "systematic, repetitive, and continuous" transfers. Given Facebook's large user base in Europe, the volume of personal data transferred is substantial. Jelinek underscored that the size of the fine sends a clear message to organizations about the serious implications of significant infringements.

In response to the ruling, Meta has announced plans to appeal both the fine and the ruling. The company confirmed that there would be no immediate disruption to Facebook's operations in Europe.

Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, and Jennifer Newstead, the company’s chief legal officer, issued a joint statement on the issue. They emphasized the importance of cross-border data transfers to the functioning of the global open internet and noted that thousands of businesses and organizations depend on such transfers for their operations and service delivery.