Facebook parent company Meta has been fine €265 million by the Irish Data Protection Commission after a data breach involving the personal details of hundreds of million users.
Last year, the DPC launched an investigation after names, phone numbers and email addresses of hundreds of millions of Facebook users were published in an online hacking forum. The scope of the investigation, which began in April 2021, included both Facebook, Messenger and Instagram tools, the DPC said. It covered the period between 25 May 2018 and September 2019.
The Commission found that Meta had been in breach of Article 25 of the GDPR rules. Other than the €265 million "administrative fines", they also issued a formal reprimand and an order inquiring Meta to bring its processing into compliance.
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Earlier this afternoon, a Meta spokesperson said they have “cooperated fully” with the DPC on the issue and have fixed the vulnerability in their systems during the time in question. The spokesperson said: “Unauthorised data scrapping is unacceptable and against our rules and we will continue working with our peers on this industry challenge. Scraping means using an automated software to lift public information from the internet which can then end up being distributed in online forums.
"Because this data set was so large, because there had been previous instances of scraping on the platform where the issues could have been identified in a more timely way, we ultimately imposed a significant sanction," Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said in an interview with RTÉ. She added the fine was so large due to the "considerable" risks for individuals, which included scamming, spamming, smishing, phishing and loss of control over their personal data.
In September, Meta lodged an appeal in the High Court after being handed another record fine of €405m for breaches relating to the processing of children's data on Instagram, the national broadcaster reported.
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