Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has been hit with a record-breaking fine of €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) for allegedly transferring user data from the European Union (EU) to the United States (U.S.). This penalty is the largest since the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU. It surpasses the previous highest fine of €746 million imposed on Amazon in 2021 for data protection violations. Initially, there was disagreement among EU regulators regarding Meta’s fine, prompting the European Data Protection Board to intervene and enforce it.

As a result of the fine, Meta has been instructed to halt the transfer of user data from the EU to the U.S. The company intends to appeal the decision and the fine. In a blog post, Meta’s President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, and Chief Legal Officer, Jennifer Newstead, expressed concern about the impact this could have on the open global internet, emphasizing the need for cross-border data transfers to avoid fragmentation and restrictions on shared services.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in 2013 by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who argued that U.S. law failed to protect against surveillance of transferred data following the Edward Snowden leak. The issue of transatlantic data transfers has long been a point of contention between the U.S. and the EU due to differences in data privacy policies. Clegg and Newstead called for an EU-U.S. data privacy framework to be established before the DPC’s compliance deadline to ensure uninterrupted services for users.