During the risk of TikTok being banned from the US due to the concerns of leaking the data of the US citizens to the Chinese government, the case has also outlined the concern of data security all over the world, and the risk is related to sharing users’ information between countries.
In the past month, the EU privacy regulator sent an order to Facebook that is calling for the suspension of the data transfer about its EU users to the US. As per the order, EU officials are concerned about any potential data leak by the US government. Also, they are now searching for ways to restrict the flow of users’ data.
That may force Facebook to keep the data of users of the EU and apply new restrictions on sharing data between countries. That would be very expensive and might create a lot of complications in the Social Network.
Currently, Facebook has released the official response on that matter, stating that if they implemented such rules, they will stop operating Facebook and its fellow platforms from the entire European countries.
According to Vice, Facebook stated that:
“If the decision is upheld, “it is not clear to [Facebook] how, in those circumstances, it could continue to provide the Facebook and Instagram services in the EU,” said Yvonne Cunnane, who is Facebook Ireland’s head of data protection and associate general counsel.”
Facebook and Instagram have more than 410M users from the EU, and if Facebook followed their threat, these users will be banned from using both platforms.
Facebook, of course, would lose a lot of money and market share if this happened, yet it would be a disaster if the EU took the security-related measures. The scenario that will most likely happen is that Facebook will eventually build an EU-only data that will be the final compromise.
However, Facebook threatening the EU emphasizes the seriousness of the concern and the increasing concern about data sharing between countries.
Similarly, Facebook has threatened Australia before, which is asking them to apply new rules that force both Google and Facebook to pay for news publishers in Australia to use their content.
However, as a response to that, Facebook said that it’s “counterproductive” and they also stated that they also have to:
“…reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram.”
This is not a full ban like they threatened the EU with. However, the threat conduct is still the same, if you want to apply any limitations, we will stop giving you any service, simply.
