Meta, along with Instagram and Facebook, is contemplating leaving Europe if it is unable to trade data from European users with the United States as a result of the Schrems II judgement, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Facebook presently exchanges data on European users with its US operations, apps, and data centres, and the company claims that ceasing such transatlantic data transfers would have a disastrous effect on its ability to provide targeted online adverts (via ITWire).
Known as Schrems II, this ruling was delivered by the European Union’s Court of Justice (CJEU) in July 2020, and it invalidated the EU-US Data Protection Shield because of concerns about monitoring by US state and law enforcement authorities. It has been challenging for many businesses who depended on the protection of the shield to deal with the new ruling.
As a result of Schrems II, not only is Facebook harmed, but so is every other corporation that relies on basic data transfers to nations outside of the European Union. Some of the most well-known brands in the industry include Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, whose cloud computing services serve as the backbone of the majority of the Western World’s Internet. As a result, the path to Schrems II will be lengthy and bumpy as courts and industry work their way through the ramifications of the decision.
An earlier court case had been filed against Google Analytics and Google Fonts, alleging that the latter were disclosing personally identifiable information to a third-party service without the user’s consent or a legitimate basis to do so.