Meta’s Threads App Not Launching in the EU Alongside Canada and the US

Meta’s Threads is set to launch on Thursday this week. Users across Canada, the US, the UK and other regions will soon have access to the company’s new Twitter competitor. Though, the EU and Ireland users may be waiting a little longer.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has stated that Threads will not launch in the EU “at this point” after being in contact about the new service. Although the Instagram sister platform is said to gather copious amounts of data from the user, the DPC is not actively blocking the launch.

Instead, it’s reported by Independent that Meta is not yet ready to have a European launch outside of the UK where EU privacy policies are in place.

The App Store listing is already available in Canada for users to pre-order. Within the listing, it’s said that the app may collect data related to health, purchases, financial info, browsing history, and other sensitive information. In the EU, Irish regulatory policies prevent ad services on WhatsApp using data from Facebook and Instagram.

The launch of Threads comes as Twitter introduces new policies, garnering criticism. Owner Elon Musk introduced a daily rate limit for tweets in an effort to “address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation.” The social platform has also made many changes to TweetDeck, pay-walling the service under Twitter Blue.