Will Europeans run out of Facebook and Instagram? Ireland's regulator wants to stop the platform's European users' personal data being sent to the US.
Ireland can support its view as Meta has its headquarters there. So the Irish Data Protection Commission has informed its counterparts in the European Union that it will prevent user data from being sent from Europe to the US.
In 2020, a temporary order was issued that blocked the data transfer, but eventually, the EU and the US temporarily agreed on a data flow framework pending the final decision. THE Meta of course he has warned (PDF) that such a decision would shut down many of its services in Europe (Facebook and Instagram).
But most industry experts believe that Meta's threats are mere words. European Union regulators have been working with their US counterparts in an effort to hammer out a new deal for months. It just hasn't passed yet.
A Meta spokesperson said at the time:
"We have absolutely no desire and no plan to leave Europe, but the reality is that Meta, and many other companies, organizations and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the US to act as global services," he said. the company's desire to assist in the completion of the new data agreement.
In short, there is no benefit to Meta leaving Europe. It would further reduce its share price, eliminate billions from its value and "cut" millions of users from its services.
Ο Privacy Shield was the "data vehicle" law and according to Europe it did not provide sufficient protection for EU user data (in the EU, user data protection laws are much stricter than in the US). It also did not provide sufficient guarantees to EU citizens about how data is used by the US government.
Έτσι καθώς το “όχημα μεταφοράς δεδομένων” ή Privacy Shield δεν είναι πλέον νόμιμο, εταιρείες όπως η Meta, η Google, η Amazon and Microsoft should review their European operations. Considering that cloud computing services offered by Google, Amazon, and Microsoft make up a huge chunk of the Internet as we know it today, Meta isn't the only big tech company facing the data transfer problem.
There is no doubt that we will see some new Privacy Shield law in force very soon, but it will most likely be stricter on the data of EU citizens than the previous bill.
If there is no new Privacy Shield there will be some other kind of agreement to not stop Meta's revenue.
