LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – According to parent company Meta, Facebook and Instagram may be shut down across Europe.
The problem stems from European data restrictions that ban Meta, known as Facebook before from transporting, storing, and processing Europeans’ data on servers in the United States.
European leaders, on the other hand, have heeded Meta’s warning.
“After I was hacked I have lived without Facebook and Twitter for four years and life has been fantastic,” new economy minister of Germany, Robert Habeck told reporters in Paris on Monday.
Bruno Le Maire, French Finance Minister said alongside his German counterpart that he could assure that life would be really fine without Facebook and that the people would live happily without it.Â
What exactly did Meta say?
Meta warned last Thursday in its annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the country’s financial regulator, the firm couldn’t use the current model of agreements any longer in the absence of the new framework. It will be forced to leave the continent.
Processing user data across borders is critical for business and ad targeting, according to Meta.
It could affect their ability to provide their services, the manner in which they do now, or their ability to target ads if they were unable to transfer data between and among countries and regions in which they operate, or if they were restricted from sharing data among their products and services, the statement read.
Meta, however, stated on Monday that it had no plans to remove Facebook and Instagram from Europe.
A spokesperson from Meta informed Euronews Next, “We have absolutely no desire and no plans to withdraw from Europe, but the simple reality is that Meta, and many other businesses, organisations and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the US in order to operate global services,”
Meta, like other companies, stated it operated a global service by following European standards and relying on Standard Contractual Clauses and proper data security.
 The spokesperson added that businesses needed clear, global rules, fundamentally, for protection of transatlantic data flows over the long term. The firm, along with more than 70 other companies across a wide range of industries, were closely monitoring the possible impact on their European operations as those developments progressed.
What is the source of the data dispute?
Previously, Meta could have used the Privacy Shield data transfer framework as the legal basis for transatlantic data transfers.
But The European Court of Justice declared the pact null and void in July 2020, citing data protection concerns. The criterion, according to the EU’s highest legal authority, does not effectively protect the privacy of a citizen of Europe.
As a result, US corporations have been limited in their ability to transport European customer data to the US, forcing them to rely on SCCs (standard contractual clauses).
The EU and the US have stated that they are working on a new or amended pact.
