What you need to know
- Facebook this week signaled its intent to move its British users to a user agreement based on US law after Brexit's completion.
- The move is a clear attempt to avoid the EU's stringent privacy rules, which have already earned the company significant fines.
- The company eventually plans to move all non-EU countries to the same user agreement and may even consider doing the same for EU users.
Facebook's struggles with privacy laws are well-documented, and the company is looking to circumvent the most stringent of these, namely EU's GDPR regulations, by moving its UK users to agreements with its US-based headquarters once Brexit is complete at the end of the year. UK users are currently covered by agreements with Facebook's international HQ, located in Ireland, and are thus protected by GDPR.
The company confirmed its intentions in a statement to Reuters earlier this week:
Like other companies, Facebook has had to make changes to respond to Brexit and will be transferring legal responsibilities and obligations for UK users from Facebook Ireland to Facebook Inc. There will be no change to the privacy controls or the services Facebook offers to people in the UK.
The company plans to begin the migration within the next six months and offer users the option to either stop using its services, including WhatsApp and Instagram, or agree to the new user agreement.
The move is likely to raise concerns among UK users and may cause a repeat of the furor caused by a change in Facebook's Terms of Service earlier this year, which led to accusations of censorship.
And while Britons' data is likely to be subject to UK law even after the change, Facebook's footing with both the UK government and at home is far from steady. Not only is it being targeted by a new antitrust unit in the UK government, but it's also the subject of litigation by the FTC that may force it to reverse its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.
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