Meta has issued a stark warning to Europe: Facebook and Instagram will no longer be available unless data is allowed to flow to the company’s servers in the US.
As Mashable reports, the warning was contained within the 134-page annual report (PDF) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Meta is concerned that it won’t be able to continue providing a number of services if data sharing regulations across Europe aren’t made clear and continue to allow data to flow “between countries or regions in which we operate” and “among our products and services.”
Meta points to the Privacy Shield transfer framework it relied upon for data sharing between the European Union and the US becoming “invalidated” in July 2020. The Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are subject to scrutiny, and the Irish Data Protection Commission concluded transferring data from the EU to the US doesn’t achieve compliance with GDPR rules. The company clearly thinks it’s running out of options to legally allow data sharing with the US.
The report goes on to state that:
“If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on SCCs or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States, we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe, which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.”
In other words, Meta thinks Europe will lose access to the two of the company’s most popular platforms if this problem isn’t sorted out soon, and by problem it means data sharing is allowed to continue. The report complains that GDPR is “a relatively new law” and is therefore still evolving which leads to uncertainty. Meta also claims it could face “significant compliance costs” and “new restrictions and requirements” if a proposed Digital Markets Act comes into force.
Taken as a whole, Meta’s complaints focus on how the company operates now and reminds us data sharing is crucial to its ability to generate a profit. It doesn’t want that to change, because ultimately Meta’s business model would disappear. We’ve already seen how limiting data sharing impacts the company through Apple’s changes to iOS. Losing access to all user data across Europe would be much more difficult to workaround and clearly Meta thinks it’s too difficult based on this report.
The threat of Facebook and Instagram disappearing across Europe also raises the question: How many people would actually care if this happened?
