Facebook warns multinationals face billions in privacy costs

Senior Facebook executive warns of huge costs for firms following Data Protection decision
US multinationals could face billions in extra costs if the Irish Data Protection Commissioner directs Facebook to suspend its data transfers from Europe to the US, a senior executive in Facebook has said.

Adrian Weckler

11/10/2015 | 02:30
 

"It would be very expensive to divide out data so that it's stored only in Europe," said the executive, who did not wish to be named. "We would have to build new data centres [in Europe]."

Facebook recently unveiled plans for a €200m data centre in Meath, its second European facility. Google has also announced plans for a new €150m data centre in Dublin.

"We would probably also have to halt some product development while we rethink the architecture of how the data was stored and dealt with," said the executive.

The comments come days after the European Court of Justice told the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to re-examine a case involving the privacy of European users' Facebook data in the US. The court said that because US authorities engage in mass surveillance of European personal information on site such as Facebook, the Irish regulator may have to "suspend" data transfers on the social network between the EU and US.

But such a decision would prove costly and difficult for companies based here.

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