Report: Facebook To Move UK Users To California Privacy Agreement

It’s not clear how happy consumers in the United Kingdom will be over Facebook’s latest move, but privacy advocates are already up in arms.

Facebook will transfer its U.K. users into new agreements with its corporate headquarters in California, effectively circumventing the European Union’s strict privacy laws, according to an exclusive report by the Reuters news service.

Google announced a similar move in February.

Facebook’s U.K. arm confirmed the move in a statement to Reuters, saying the move is necessitated by the country’s pending departure from the European Union, better known as Brexit.

Facebook, Google and many other companies have based their European subsidiaries in Ireland, an EU member, with the Emerald Isle’s legal and regulatory relationship with the U.K. now poised for a major readjustment with Brexit.

Facebook is concerned about EU’s privacy controls, some of the strictest on the planet, which “give granular control to users over data about them,” Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the company.

The EU on Tuesday (Dec. 15) rolled out a proposal for tough new regulations for digital services that cover online marketplaces, social media and other platforms.

In its statement, Facebook scrambled to reassure its U.K. users, arguing that there would be “no change” to either “privacy controls” or the services it provides.

“Like other companies, Facebook has had to make changes to respond to Brexit and will be transferring legal responsibilities and obligations for U.K. users from Facebook Ireland to Facebook Inc.,” the tech giant’s U.K. arm told Reuters. “There will be no change to the privacy controls or the services Facebook offers to people in the U.K.”

Even with the change, Facebook’s U.K. users will remain subject to British privacy laws, which follow the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regime.

But privacy advocates fear that the U.K., once it is free from the EU, will loosen its privacy controls, especially if the U.K. inks a free trade pact with the United States.

“The bigger the company, the more personal data they hold, the more likely they are to be subject to surveillance duties or requirements to hand over data to the U.S. government,” Jim Killock, executive director of the U.K.-based nonprofit Open Rights Group, told Reuters.