Irish regulator could halt Facebook, Instagram EU-US data flows in May

Europe’s highest court ruled in 2020 that an EU-U.S. data transfer pact was invalid due to concerns that U.S. government surveillance may not respect the privacy rights of EU citizens.

EU-U.S. data transfers by Meta owned Facebook and Instagram could be halted as soon as May but the move would not immediately hit other big tech companies, Ireland's data privacy regulator said in an interview.

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Europe's highest court ruled in 2020 that an EU-U.S. data transfer pact was invalid due to concerns that U.S. government surveillance may not respect the privacy rights of EU citizens.

That prompted Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC), Meta's lead regulator in Europe, to issue a provisional order that the mechanism Facebook and Instagram uses to transfer datafrom European Union users to the United States "cannot inpractice be used."

The order, which does not apply to WhatsApp as it has a different data controller within the Meta group, was frozen following a legal challenge but resumed last May when the Irish High Court dismissed Meta's claims.

An updated decision could be shared with fellow EU regulators in April and if none of them lodge an objection, "the earliest time we could have a final decision could be the end of May," Helen Dixon told Reuters. Any objection could add some months to the timeline.

"If there were a scenario where data flows were deemed illegal and required a halt, obviously the impacts would be huge," she said.