Meta threatens to pull Facebook and Instagram from Europe if it can’t target ads

Meta states in an SEC filing it is considering leaving Europe if it can no longer exchange data from European users with the United States, following the Schrems II decision.

The Schrems II decision is a key ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union which, in July 2020, declared the Privacy Shield, the EU/S personal data transfer mechanism was no longer lawful. The Privacy Shield is US law that provided US authorities with the right to collect personal data about EU data subjects without, the Court says, adequate safeguards. Further, the judgement states EU data subjects lacked effective means to seek redress against the US Government.

This action itself harks back to 2011 when Australian lawyer, activist, and author Maximillian Schrems pored through 1,222 pages of information Facebook held about him. He discovered details he believed he had deleted, and others he had not consented to be shared and lodged a complaint with the Irish data protection commissioner (as Facebook falls under Irish Jurisdiction, where it settled for tax reasons).

Fast forward today and with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) well in force, the US Privacy Shield principles were found non-compliant and consequently invalid.

The Schrems II ruling affects every American company, and not solely Facebook. It includes Google, Microsoft, and Amazon whose cloud services form the backbone of most of the Western World’s Internet. As such, the road to Schrems II will be a long and slow one as courts and industry navigate their way through the ramifications of the judgement.

Previously, Google Analytics and Google Fonts have been before the court where it was asserted that Google Fonts was sending personal data such as IP address to another service without permission, and without a clear and valid reason to do this.

While some fear Europe will alienate itself from the major cloud providers, and the Google Fonts ruling sets a precedent in cases where content is served from a content distribution network or CDN, there are other legal regimes in place that are approved to send EU data to the US. While Schrems II invalidates Privacy Shield, the legal protections afforded to Standard Contractual Clauses and Binding Corporate Rules continue to be in effect.

Nevertheless, Facebook is threatening it will simply pull out of Europe altogether if it is no longer able to share data about European users with its US operations, applications, and data centres. While the European Court of Justice states personal data is less well-protected in the US than in Europe, Facebook says stopping transatlantic data transfers will have a devastating impact on its targeted online advertisements capabilities.

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