Meta hit with record $1.3-billion fine in EU over US data transfers

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. was hit by a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) European Union privacy fine and given a deadline to stop shipping users’ data to the US after regulators said it failed to protect personal information from the American security services.

The fine imposed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which regulates Meta across the EU, is a record for a breach of the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The social network giant’s continued data transfers to the US didn’t address “the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms” of people whose data was being transfered across the Atlantic, the Irish Data Protection Commission said on Monday.