Meta slapped with record £1 billion fine by EU regulators over data transfers

It was announced this week that Meta is to be fined a record breaking £1 billion by the European Union over its handling of data, specifically the transfer of user data to the US.

The European Union’s privacy regulators, such as Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), are set to impose the fine after they recently uncovered that rules regarding the transfers of personal data from the EU to the US had been broken.

In articles for the Guardian and Evening Standard, Associate in our commercial team, Daisy Fulton, comments on the fine and the potential of a similar approach being taken in the UK:

‘The eye-watering fine of €1.2 billion was imposed on Meta Ireland for its failure to protect individuals’ personal data when sending that data to the US. Meta Ireland had failed to do this even after a European Court judgement had made it clear that those protections needed to be in place.’

‘As the law in the UK is currently very similar to the EU, we may find the UK taking a similar approach.’

The full articles are available to read on the Guardian and Evening Standard websites.

To hear more from our Information Law and Data Protection team, keep an eye out for their new series of Insights discussing the proposed Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill.