Meta to pull Instagram and Facebook from Europe

The tech giant, Meta has announced that it can choose to pull some of its platforms in Europe if the EU rules are enacted to stop it from sending data back to the USA. Meta said in its annual report that the company is expecting the final ruling in the first half of 2022 on whether it will continue to use SCCs or not.

The company has also received a warning from a data protection watchdog in September 2020 about the legal mechanism that the company uses to share that data of EU users with its USA serves may not be legal. The mechanism is called Standard Contractual Clauses. 

The company said in its annual report that if a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and the company is unable to rely on SCCs or other means of data transfer from Europe to the USA, the company will not be able to offer a number of its most significant products and services in Europe. It may include Facebook and Instagram.

The  Privacy Shield decision confirmed SCC as a potential transfer mechanism with other countries but said those countries' data protection laws must comply with EU regulations.

A member of the European Parliament, Axel Voss has accused Meta of trying to strong-arm Europe into weakening its data protection laws. Whereas a spokesperson of Meta has said that the company has followed European rules and relied on SCCs to operate a global service.