Meta fined $1.3 billion, asked to stop transferring Facebook data from users in Europe to US

Meta on Monday was fined a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) and ordered to stop transferring data collected from Facebook users in Europe to the US, in a major ruling against the social media company for violating European Union data protection rules.

The penalty, announced by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, is potentially one of the most consequential in the five years since the EU enacted the landmark data privacy law known as the General Data Protection Regulation. Regulators said the company failed to comply with a 2020 decision by the EU’s highest court that data shipped across the Atlantic was not sufficiently protected from American spy agencies.

The ruling announced on Monday applies only to Facebook and not Instagram and WhatsApp, which Meta also owns.