are in the midst of negotiating a new data-transfer text that would allow companies like Meta to continue to ship data across the Atlantic irrespective of the Irish order. following the EU's top court ruling in 2020.
The Irish blocking order, if confirmed by the group of European national data protection regulators, is likely to send a chill through the wider business community too, which has been scratching its head about how to continue sending data from Europe to the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission in March this year. "If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on SCCs or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States, we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe," Meta said in a filing to the U.S. This week's decision out of Ireland means Facebook is forced to stop relying on SCCs too. firms use to transfer personal data to the U.S., called standard contractual clauses (SCCs). In its ruling, it also made it harder to use another legal tool that Meta and many other U.S. data flows pact called Privacy Shield because of fears over U.S. The European Court of Justice in 2020 annulled an EU-U.S. tech giant and European privacy activists. The Irish regulator's draft decision cracks down on Meta's last legal resort to transfer large chunks of data to the U.S., after years of fierce court battles between the U.S.
The Irish Data Protection Commission on Thursday informed its counterparts in Europe that it will block Facebook-owner Meta from sending user data from Europe to the U.S. Europeans risk seeing social media services Facebook and Instagram shut down this summer, as Ireland's privacy regulator doubled down on its order to stop the firm's data flows to the United States.