Facebook moving 1.5 billion users out of Ireland to dodge data laws

FACEBOOK is moving more than 1.5 billion users from its international HQ in Ireland to California in order to skirt new EU privacy laws.

Facebook members outside the US and Canada, whether they know it or not, are currently governed by terms of service agreed with the company’s international headquarters in Grand Canal Dock, Dublin.

Despite Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg promising the social media giant would stick to the spirit of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 1.5 billion users in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America will find their data governed by US law from next month.

The previously unreported move, which Facebook has confirmed, 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. That removes a huge potential liability for Facebook, as the new EU law allows for fines of up to 4pc of global annual revenue for infractions, which in Facebook’s case could mean billions of dollars.

The change comes as Facebook is under scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers around the world since disclosing last month that the personal information of millions of users wrongly ended up in the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, setting off wider concerns about how it handles user data.

The change affects more than 70pc of Facebook’s two billion-plus members.

In a statement, Facebook played down the importance of the terms of service change, saying it plans to make the privacy controls and settings that Europe will get under GDPR available to the rest of the world.

Earlier this month, Facebook Mr Zuckerberg said his company would apply the EU law globally “in spirit,” but stopped short of committing to it as the standard for the social network across the world.

In practice, the change means the 1.5 billion affected users will not be able to file complaints with Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner or in Irish courts. Instead they will be governed by more lenient US privacy laws

Facebook is seeking to recruit more than 100 new staff for its Irish operations, where it employs over 2,200 people.

Other multinational companies are also planning changes. LinkedIn is to move its own non-EU users from its Irish to its US branch on May 8.