The Massive Meta Fine in the E.U. Is Really About the NSA ⇥ techdirt.com

Mike Masnick, Techdirt:

[…] Last year, the US and the EU announced yet another deal on transatlantic data flows. And, as we noted at the time (once again!) the lack of any changes to NSA surveillance meant it seemed unlikely to survive yet again.

In the midst of all this, Schrems also went after Meta directly, claiming that because these US/EU data transfer agreements were bogus, that Meta had violated data protection laws in transferring EU user data to US servers.

And that’s what this fine is about. The European Data Protection Board fined Meta all this money based on the fact that it transferred some EU user data to US servers. And, because, in theory, the NSA could then access the data. That’s basically it. The real culprit here is the US being unwilling to curb the NSA’s ability to demand data from US companies.

As noted, and something which aligns with other examples of GDPR violations.

There is one aspect of Masnick’s analysis which I dispute:

Of course, the end result of all this could actually be hugely problematic for privacy around the globe. That might sound counterintuitive, seeing as here is Meta being dinged for a data protection failure. But, when you realize what the ruling is actually saying, it’s a de facto data localization mandate.

And data localization is the tool most frequently used by authoritarian regimes to force foreign internet companies (i.e., US internet companies) to host user data within their own borders where the authoritarian government can snoop through it freely. Over the years, we’ve seen lots of countries do this, from Russia to Turkey to India to Vietnam.

Just because data localization is something used by authoritarian governments does not mean it is an inherently bad idea. Authoritarian governments are going to do authoritarian government things — like picking through private data — but that does not mean people who reside elsewhere would face similar concerns.

While housing user data in the U.S. may offer protection for citizens, it compromises the privacy and security of others. Consider that non-U.S. data held on U.S. servers lacks the protections ostensibly placed on U.S. users’ information, meaning U.S. intelligence agencies are able to pick through it with little oversight. (That is, after all, the E.U.’s argument in its charges against Meta.) Plenty of free democracies also have data localization laws for at least some personal information without a problem. For example, while international agreements prevent the Canadian government from requiring data residency as a condition for businesses, privacy regulations require some types of information to be kept locally, while other types must have the same protections as Canadian-hosted data if stored elsewhere.