With thanks to IAPP news https://iapp.org/news/a/meta-braces-for-eu-shutdown-gdpr-fine/ the key points are:
- July 2020 – the EU Court of Justice deemed EU/US Privacy Shield to be invalid (commonly known as the ‘Schrems II’ case). The Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC) then started an investigation into whether Facebook’s data transfers to the US were legal.
- May 2021 – Meta’s legal challenges were denied.
- July 2022 – IDPC’s draft decision sent to EU data protection authorities, with some members disputing the findings.
The final decision is likely to be published on 12th May and, in filings to the US SEC, Meta seems to be preparing for a significant fine and a stop to its EU/ES data flows.
This raises several questions about the future of Met’a services (Facebook, Instagram, etc) in the EU and what mitigation there will be, if any, by the new EU/US Data Protection Framework which is itself uncertain at the moment.
But what about here in the UK, as we are not a part of the EU GDPR now? Well, UK Facebook users have had to accept terms which place them under the US terms and conditions, so we are outside this debate. Whether that is a good or bad thing, we leave you to decide.