Facebook owner Meta fined €1.2bn for mishandling user information

Facebook’s owner, Meta, has been given five months to suspend data transfers from users in the EU to the US. Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

Facebook’s owner, Meta, has been fined a record €1.2bn (£1bn) and ordered to suspend the transfer of user data from the EU to the US.

The fine – equivalent to $1.3bn – imposed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which regulates Meta across the EU, is a record for a breach of the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).