Meta was fined €265 million in data protection fines by the Irish Data Protection Commission for claiming that the company had undermined user privacy.
The privacy watchdog alleges that the parent company of Facebook and Instagram failed to protect the data of more than half a billion users, potentially leaving a large number of those affected at high risk of fraud. much more like Identity theft continue down the line.
News comes later a security researcher revealed The data of more than 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries was leaked, including about 32 million from the US and 11 million from the UK, including phone numbers, dates of birth, email addresses and locations. .
The regulatory body that has jurisdiction over Meta as the company has its European headquarters in the country, said in a statement (opens in a new tab) that Meta violated the GDPR obligation for “Data Protection by Design and Default”.
In addition to the hefty fine, the regulator’s decision will force Meta to “comply with its processing by taking a specified series of remedial actions within a specific timeframe.” “. The option remains for Meta to appeal the fine in Irish courts.
Commenting on the news, a spokesperson for Meta said the company had made changes to “its systems during the time in question, including removing our ability to collect features.” me this way by using a phone number.”
They added: “Unauthorized data collection is unacceptable and against our rules and we will continue to work with our colleagues on this industry challenge.
Meta is no stranger to hefty fines from EU regulators. WhatsApp fined 225 million euros for a transparency violation in September 2021.
In September 2022, Instagram was fined an even heavier €405 million related to the way the social networking platform handles data belonging to children.
In March 2022, Meta was fined €17 million by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) due to a series of historical data breaches since 2018.
