Facebook moves 1.5 billion users from Ireland to US to circumvent GDPR

dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd · April 19, 2018

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Facebook is moving the registration of 1.5 billion of its users from Ireland to Silicon Valley.

Currently users from Africa, Asia, Australia and South America technically fall under the headquarters in Ireland, which means GDPR privacy rules would apply to those accounts as of May 25th.

Facebook will be virtually transferring those registrations to the US headquarters, where privacy rules are nowhere near as strict.

The data of European citizens falls under the GDPR no matter what, so that will remain in Ireland.

Quote

Facebook members outside the United States and Canada, whether they know it or not, are currently governed by terms of service agreed with the company's international headquarters in Ireland.

Next month, Facebook is planning to make that the case for only European users, meaning 1.5 billion members in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Latin America will not fall under the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes effect on May 25.

The previously unreported move, which Facebook confirmed to Reuters on Thursday, shows the world's largest online social network is keen to reduce its exposure to GDPR, which allows European regulators to fine companies for collecting or using personal data without users' consent.

Source 1 : https://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-moving-1-5-billion-users-away-from-gdpr-protection/

Source 2 : https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/59jayz/facebook-just-took-data-protections-away-from-15-billion-users

This was to be expected. Zuckerberg may claim to care about users' privacy as much as he wants, his actions once again speak louder than his words.