European regulators are laying a hefty fine on Facebook for mishandling users' personal data.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission has handed down a fine of 746 million euros (roughly $800 million), a record amount for a data breach.
The agency will also pause data transfers from European Facebook users to the United States.
Meta, Facebook's parent company, is expected to appeal the decision, which found that the social media giant was mishandling people's data when transferring it between Europe and the United States.
As reported by The Guardian, "the ruling relates to a legal challenge brought by an Austrian privacy campaigner, Max Schrems, over concerns resulting from the Edward Snowden revelations that European users' data is not sufficiently protected from U.S. intelligence agencies when it is transferred across the Atlantic."
In Meta's most recent quarterly results, the company said it relies on standard contractual clauses (SCCs) to transfer user data from the European Union to the U.S. in order to offer its "most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe." Without SCCs or other alternative means of data transfers, the company warned it would likely no longer be able to offer those services in Europe.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission said an investigation determined that Meta's use of SCCs does not comply with its General Data Protection Regulation. The commission pointed out that updated SCCs were adopted by the European Commission in 2021 following a ruling in the Schrems' lawsuit, and that Facebook continued to transfer personal data without addressing "the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms of data subjects" that were identified in the judgement.
Facebook president Nick Clegg called the decision unfair.
"We are therefore disappointed to have been singled out when using the same legal mechanism as thousands of other companies looking to provide services in Europe," Clegg said in a statement to BBC News. "This decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and US."
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