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The European Union on Monday fined Meta a record $1.3 billion for transferring European users’ data to the US.
The penalty marks the largest since the EU implemented harsher data privacy laws in 2018 — and the end of a decade-long case that was filed by Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems, according to AP News.
In 2013, Schrems filed a complaint about Facebook’s handling of his data after then-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified documents revealing the mass surveillance of American citizens by their own intelligence apparatus.
The leaked information included the revelation that Facebook gave US agencies access to Europeans’ personal data.
While the US has no comprehensive federal law to police data privacy, the EU has the Digital Services Act, which forces big tech companies to protect European users from hate speech, disinformation and other harmful online content, according to AP.
The EU and US also followed the Privacy Shield framework, which allowed companies on both sides of the Atlantic to transfer personal data while following protection requirements.
