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Summary
- Facebook is reportedly switching the UK users onto US agreements
- Facebook shares closed marginally higher on Tuesday witnessing a V-shaped recovery after plunging nearly 3 per cent
There are a lot of changes happening as the Brexit transition deadline comes to an end on 31 December. Not only the arrangement of international trade is changing, the data and privacy policies are also supposed to witness modifications. With the transition deadline looming, the California-headquartered social media giant and advertising platform Facebook Inc has reportedly indicated that the company will be shifting all the UK-based users onto the agreements with California away from its Irish unit in order to avoid Europe’s privacy laws.
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The shift
The modification is likely to change the control of the EU over the data and privacy of UK users. The Facebook users based out of the United Kingdom will be transferred onto the user agreements of California, news agency Reuters reported.
The new adjustment by Facebook comes at a crucial time when the UK administration is preparing to be wholly-governed by the local laws from the intervention of the EU. The reorganisation of the user agreements has been intended to move out the users from the present jurisdiction of Europe and the existing relationship with Facebook’s Irish unit, the report added.
Facebook UK unit has said, as seen in the Reuters report, that “there will be no change” as far as the services offered or the privacy controls to the UK account holders is concerned.
Facebook’s data demand
According to Facebook’s Transparency Report for the first half of 2020 published on 19 November, the requests for accessing the user data by respective governments surged 23 per cent in the first six months of 2020 to 173, 592 from 140,875.
The US administration remained at the top in terms of requesting the user data of the total volume, followed by India, Germany and France, Facebook said in the report.
Notably, the UK administration submitted the lowest number of requests to access the user data. Certain requests from the government are followed by a non-disclosure order that prohibits Facebook from notifying the users that the government has asked for their data.
Non-disclosures and restrictions
Facebook received nearly 61,528 requests in the first half of 2020, almost 20 per cent more than what it got in the second half of 2019. Of the total requests, 67 per cent contained the non-disclosure orders. However, as per Facebook, the company doesn’t provide a direct access or a back door to respective governments with regards to the information about people.
The pandemic-induced curbs that were incorporated to keep a check on the spread of misinformation by the regional governments have directed various social media and blogging portals to amend the control over the user’s post. In the first half of 2020, Facebook saw a rise of 40 per cent in the volume of content restrictions based on local laws across the globe.
Facebook shares
The Nasdaq-listed stocks of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) managed to close marginally higher on Tuesday after plunging nearly 3 per cent in the intraday trades. The stock of Facebook made a V-shaped recovery in the day gaining a little more than 3 per cent in the late afternoon deals. Facebook stock finally settled at $275.55, up 0.50 per cent, from the previous closing price of $274.19 after oscillating between an intraday high and low of $276.08 and $267.47 a piece, respectively.
