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The European Union has fined Facebook Inc, the parent company of the US social media platform, 1.2 billion euros (1 euro) for violating data transfer rules, AFP reported Tuesday. The New York Times said the penalty was the largest since the European Union enacted its toughest data privacy law to date, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Eu Data Protection Commissioner Andreja Jelinek said the transfer of European user data to U.S. servers was "systematic and persistent" and the level of violation was "very serious."

Collect 1.2 billion euros in fines

The European Data Protection Commission announced the penalty in a statement, saying it followed an investigation into the company by the Irish Data Protection Commission, which imposed the maximum fine under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, the report said.

At the request of the European Data Protection Commission, the Irish Data Protection Commission ordered the company to pay 1.2 billion euros under the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, a record fine since the regulation came into force five years ago. That's more than the 746 million euros that another U.S. tech giant, Amazon, was fined by Luxembourg regulators in 2021, also for violating the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation.

At the same time, Ireland's Data Protection Commission ordered Meta to stop transferring European users' data to U.S. servers within five months of receiving the decision, citing the company's failure to comply with a 2020 decision by the European Union's highest court that European users' data was not adequately protected and that user information had been illegally stored on U.S. servers for years. Or by American spy agencies.

The Irish Data Protection Commission is the regulator responsible for monitoring the operations of Meta companies in Europe. In a statement Tuesday, the company called the European regulator's decision "flawed, unfair" and "a dangerous precedent for many other companies that transfer data between the EU and the U.S." and said it would appeal against the penalties. Meanwhile, Yuan said it would not immediately suspend Facebook's services in the European Union.

Data transmission has boundaries

The European Data Protection Commission has repeatedly highlighted the lack of privacy protections equivalent to the General Data Protection Regulation in the US, which allows US intelligence services to access data belonging to Europeans through data transfers.

The United States and the European Union have agreed in principle on a new data transfer agreement, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, but it has not yet come into force. The company hopes the two sides will push for the agreement to come into force this summer.

Mr Schrems said Yuan companies had flouted EU rules for years to profit and should face tougher penalties. He predicted that the new data transfer agreement between the European Union and the United States, which is under review within the European Union, will probably be rejected again by the European Court of Justice, and Yuan is unlikely to "reverse course." Unless the US changes its regulatory laws, companies will have to keep EU data in the EU.

Johnny Ryan, a senior researcher at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, said the company would have to delete a large amount of data about European Facebook users. Given the interconnectedness of Internet companies, this will pose technical difficulties.

According to CNBC, the ruling could hurt Facebook's business in Europe, particularly its advertising business. Last month, Yuan's chief financial officer said about 10 percent of its global advertising revenue came from ads to Facebook users in European Union countries.

Analysts said the ruling against Metacorp showed that the traditional way of moving data without boundaries was being upended. Companies are increasingly required to store data in the country where it is collected, rather than allowing it to move freely to data centres around the world.