(Boursier.com) – Another step towards closure in Europe? Although already questioned by Meta, last February, Europe’s strict personal data protection laws, which are much less flexible than American laws, have engaged in a new confrontation between the giant of social networks and the Irish Commission for the Protection of Data.

According to information from ‘Politico’, the Data Protection Commission (DPC), Ireland’s equivalent of Cnil, will block the exchange of European user data with the US. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has previously warned on several occasions that such a move could lead to the shutdown of many of its services in Europe.

American media, which have been able to examine the documents confirmed by the Irish regulator, report that all local equivalents, including France’s National Commission for Computing and Freedoms, have been notified. A spokesman for the DPC said a draft decision had been sent to European rivals, who have a month to comment before the ban takes effect.

In 2020, the “Privacy Shield” was repealed

These data transfers between Europe and the United States are crucial for the Californian company, which centralizes user data and spreads it through all its storage centers around the world. The topic of data transfer is not new…

In July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the “Privacy Shield,” a transfer framework that Meta relied on for data transferred from the European Union to the United States. They believed that personal data was less protected on American soil than in Europe and that the agreement was against the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

Since then, another system has been introduced that allows American companies to transfer personal data to the United States, called “Standard Contractual Clauses” (SCC). However, the Irish Data Protection Commission believes that this tool used by Meta is insufficient and does not solve the problem of American surveillance.

A new text for controlling data transfer

The United States and the European Union are working on a new text to regulate data transfers abroad to avoid shutting down Facebook’s Meta services in Europe, where Facebook has 309 million monthly active users.The Atlantic. Although a political agreement was reached last March, negotiations over the legal details are ongoing and the text is not due to be finalized before the end of the year.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company wants to make sure. “This draft decision, which is under review by European data protection authorities, concerns a conflict between European and American law and is in the process of being resolved,” explained a spokesperson for Meta.

“We welcome the EU-US agreement on a new legal framework that enables the seamless transfer of data across borders, and we hope that this framework will allow us to keep families, communities and economies connected,” he added.