Employees in Europe are currently drafting new legislation that will dictate how user data of EU citizens will be transferred across the Atlantic.
Meta has announced that Facebook and Instagram services in Europe may need to be shut down if data from European users cannot be processed, stored and transferred to US-based servers. A number of media outlets cited its annual files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in its development reporting. The company added that this “will materially and negatively affect our business, financial condition and further results”.
“Meta can not blackmail the EU into giving up its data protection standards,” European lawmaker Axel Voss said via Twitter, adding that “leaving the EU would be their loss.” Meta currently uses a preliminary agreement between the EU and the US called the “Privacy Shield”, which entered into force in 2020.
Meanwhile the two most powerful countries in Europe, Germany and France said they are not concerned by these warnings.
“After my account was stolen, I lived without Facebook and Twitter for four years and life has been fantastic,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said at a news conference with French Finance Minister Bruno le Maire.
“I can confirm that life without Facebook is much better and that we would live very well without it,” said the French minister.
