Facebook’s owner Meta has been fined a record €1.2bn (£1bn) by Ireland and told to stop sending European users’ data to the US, in a spying row that has seen the social networking giant threaten to leave Europe.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced the fine on Monday morning. It is a record penalty under Europe’s GDPR laws.

Meta has been fined for transferring European users’ data to the US in a way that creates “risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms” of its users, the DPC said.

The company will also be forced to stop transferring users’ data to America within five months and has been given six months to remove data from US servers.

The fine, which eclipses the previous record GDPR fine of €746m given to Amazon in 2021, is the culmination of a years-long campaign from privacy activists who claimed Facebook’s data transfers breached European laws because of the extent of US surveillance practices.

Facebook had previously warned in legal filings that it may have to leave Europe as a result of a data transfer ban, but has since said it does not plan to do so.

Nick Clegg, Meta’s head of global affairs, said the fine was "flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and US". 

This is a breaking news story. More to follow.