Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by Traster on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @06:06PM (#25436594)

This is absolutely not what's happening here though. Facebook absolutely could keep the data within the EU, they just think it's more profitable to move UK user data to California. Now, it's a valid question as to why the UK would allow their constituents most personal data to be transferred out of their jurisdiction, but that's up to the UK government. Facebook exists in hundreds of jurisdictions, it's not rare for them to move user data out of a jurisdiction or intio a jurisdiction. It's almost unique that a govenrment encourages that by reducing regulation though.

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Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by remus on Wednesday December 16, 2020 @02:42AM (#25440060)

Maybe I've misread the article, but I didn't see anything about Facebook transferring user data to the US. What has changed is that FB users in the UK will be agreeing to terms with Facebook Inc in California rather than Facebook Ireland.

I suspect this is because the UK has a data sharing agreement with the US, but when Brexit kicks in there is not a legal mechanism in place for easy transfer of data from the EU to the UK (which makes your life hard if you're a company based in Ireland and you need to send data to the UK.)

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Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by nomel on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @07:53PM (#25437629)

> why the UK would allow their constituents most personal data to be transferred out of their jurisdiction

Are there limitations with using products/doing business outside the UK, from within the UK? As in, is there any authority that they could use to stop people from, willingly(?), using a foreign internet service? It seems that would require some pretty draconian internet policies.

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Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by lmm on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @08:31PM (#25437936)

There are, quite rightly, strict rules about how companies handle personal data (and that includes not transferring it to jurisdictions where those rules don't apply). I don't think any of those rules apply to individuals handling their own personal data.

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Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by dheera on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @06:47PM (#25437033)

Would it be possible to store data in a cryptographically decentralized way to stop giving meaning to "where" a data is stored?

Or maybe even just XOR it with a random key, put the result in the UK and put the key in the US. That way neither US nor UK has "personal data" -- independently each country just got a pile of white noise -- but the two countries together do have it, and they wouldn't be able to say who "really" has it.

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Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by mfer on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @07:31PM (#25437445)

This issue isn't a case of what is technologically feasible.

This is about what's profitable and within legal policies of a country they are operating in.

Where data is stored is sometimes an issue of jurisdiction policy (laws).

Think of this as a separation between requirements (what) and implementation (how)

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Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by dheera on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @08:23PM (#25437870)

I suppose, but law has to be governed by written documents, and part of technology's job is to advance society by identifying and operating in the loopholes of those written documents. What does the written law define as "where data is stored"?

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Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by 8note on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @07:04PM (#25437190)

The government can just hold the locals in prison until the decrypted data is provided

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Re:Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding E... by azalemeth on Thursday December 17, 2020 @04:41AM (#25454065)

This is literally the law in the UK at the moment: https://www.theregister.com/2007/10/03/ripa-decryption_keys_...

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