Facebook (now Meta) has faced many allegations and litigations in the past 10 years. Most are related to privacy, data protection, and surveillance in other countries. However, a case that was filed against Facebook in 2013 was given a verdict.
The case involves US mass surveillance against European Personal data and transferring of EU data to US data centers. According to the US Surveillance Law (FISA 702), Meta has been subject to the transfer of a large number of data over the past 10 years.
As per the European Court of Justice (CJEU), Meta will now have to pay a record fine of €1.2 billion and also return all the personal data to its EU data centers.
Edward Snowden blew the whistle about US surveillance in 2013, which created huge havoc against the NSA’s mass surveillance apparatus. Meta has been aware of the case that was filed against them in 2013 but did not take any precautions in the past 10 years.
The verdict also stated the reauthorization of the US Surveillance Law (FISA 702). Many Cloud providers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon might face a similar fine if they do not comply with the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
Other countries like Austria, France, and Italy have also felt the US services were unlawful but did not proceed with a major fine.
It took nearly 10 years, 3 court proceedings, and 10 million euros to end up with the verdict while the Irish DPC was trying to protect Meta by all means. Initially, they rejected this case as “frivolous,” which had Mr. Schrems (the Austrian Activist) to get back to the CJEU.
The DPC also tried to frame that Meta had used the “Standard Contractual Clause” henceforth, they cannot take any action against them. However, the claim was rejected by the CJEU, which made DPC provide the final shield to Meta by arguing to stop a fine and go with the deletion of data that was already transferred. The EDPB overturned it.
These court proceedings and the verdict have a shaky situation between the previous EU-US data deals (“Privacy Shield” and “Safe Harbor”), which had faced a lot of criticism.
Mr. Schrems stated, “Meta will appeal this decision, but there is no real chance to have this decision materially overturned. Past violations cannot be overcome by a new EU-US deal. Meta can, at best delay the payment of the fine for a bit. Meta plans to rely on the new deal for transfers going forward, but this is likely not a permanent fix. In my view, the new deal has maybe a ten percent chance of not being killed by the CJEU. Unless US surveillance laws gets fixed, Meta will likely have to keep EU data in the EU.”
Privacy must always be an option when it comes to sharing of a user’s data. The current generation depends entirely on “data,” which must be protected at all costs.
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