The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Executive Vice President for Public Policy, Lartease Tiffith, issued the following statement after the European Union fined Facebook parent company Meta $1.3 billion for transferring EU residents’ personal information to the United States.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) levied the fine and ordered Meta to stop transatlantic data transfers by October:

“This decision has consequences for every American company transferring data from EU markets to the U.S. and underscores the need for a new transatlantic data agreement that enables continued commerce between our two important trading blocs. Transatlantic data flows support an estimated $7.1 trillion in EU-U.S. trade – a trillion dollars annually. Since EU courts struck down a previous agreement, American businesses of all sizes have been relying on standard contractual clauses (SCCs), however the Irish DPC has practically eliminated this measure of legal protection too, injecting further uncertainty into a vital economic relationship. IAB and other leading industry associations are urging EU leaders to swiftly approve President Biden’s solution, which we believe satisfies the United States’ and EU’s high standards for international data privacy and security and would help small and medium-sized businesses, especially, to prosper.”