The constant disagreement that Mark Zuckerberg lives with European high politics will experience a new and complicated episode in the immediate future, since Facebook and Instagram could leave Europe . The European Union continues to seek to protect the privacy of users in its territory at all costs, which is why in 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation came into force, which prevents the transfer of this data from European territory to the United States. advertising purposes.
Meta, the company to which services such as Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp belong, sent a letter to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in which it threatens to stop offering its services in the European Union if not may process the data of its European users in the United States.
“ If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we cannot continue to rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or other alternative methods of transferring data from Europe to the US, we may not we could offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, which would affect our business, financial condition and results of operations ”, reads the letter sent by Meta to the SEC .
In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg appeared in the European Parliament and acknowledged that his company’s data processing was not exemplary: “ In the last two years we have not done enough to prevent the tools we have created from being used to harmful purposes ”, he said in full controversy over the massive leak of data to Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm that worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. Those words of Zuckerberg, however, do not correspond to the real position of his company, since it is not the first time that he has threatened to leave Europe .
In 2020, Facebook already had to face a case in the Irish courts on behalf of the European data transfer mechanism. Mark Zuckerberg’s company already assured in that trial that ” it is not clear to [Facebook] how, in these circumstances, it could continue to offer Facebook and Instagram services in the European Union .”
THE COURTS, ON THE SIDE OF THE USERS
European jurisprudence already includes several cases in which Zuckerberg’s company has been ruled against and in favor of European users , which has led the founder of Meta to resort to this sword of Damocles on a recurring basis to try to intimidate European politicians and judges given the large number of users who have Facebook and Instagram in the European Union. Curiously, in his letter there is no mention of WhatsApp, the most widely used instant messaging service on this side of the Atlantic.
Despite the legal blows to Facebook (recently renamed Meta to differentiate the matrix of the social network), Mark Zuckerberg would be able to transfer data to US territory , as revealed by the specialized privacy platform noyb at the end of last year. . Facebook’s Transfer Impact Assessment finds data protection laws to be equivalent and not contrary as the courts have asserted, which would enable our data to continue to be transferred to the US, where Meta is based.
The privacy of user data has become one of the Achilles’ heels for Meta and all its applications in recent years. Each update of the terms of use on Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp inevitably generates great controversy, as was seen with the most recent one on WhatsApp , which ended up leading to multiple downloads of alternative services such as Telegram.