LONDON — In the latest criminal case against Meta for violating European privacy rules, the tech giant was fined about $275 million on Monday for a data breach discovered last year that resulted in the personal information of more than 500 million Facebook users being exposed online. published.
The fine, imposed by the Irish Data Protection Commission, brings the fines the regulator has imposed on Meta since last year to more than $900 million. In September, the same regulator fined the company about $400 million for mishandling children’s data. Last October, Irish authorities fined Meta, formerly known as Facebook, 225 million euros, or about $235 million, for violations related to its WhatsApp messaging service.
The increasing fines will be a welcome sign for privacy groups who want European Union regulators to enforce the General Data Protection Regulation more aggressively. The law was hailed as a milestone in technology company regulation when it went into effect in 2018, but regulators have since faced criticism for not enforcing the rules rigorously enough.
Ireland is under pressure because of its key role in enforcing EU data protection rules. The country monitors compliance with the 2018 law by technology companies, as companies such as Meta, Google and Twitter have established their EU headquarters in Ireland. TikTok, which has also set up an EU hub in Ireland, is the subject of another investigation there.
The fine imposed on Monday stems from an investigation launched last year by Irish regulators into reports that Facebook had failed to secure its platform against “scraping” for information, leading to the publication on an online hacker forum of data containing names of users, locations and dates of birth, in violation of rules requiring companies to protect personal information.
Meta said in a statement that “unauthorized data scraping is unacceptable and against our rules.” The company said it had changed its policy to prevent such practices. Meta didn’t say whether it would appeal the decision, as it did for Instagram and WhatsApp fines.
Meta isn’t the only tech giant under scrutiny. Last year, Amazon was fined nearly €750 million for its online advertising practices by regulators in Luxembourg, where it has its European headquarters. In January, Google was fined €150 million by French regulators for not giving users an adequate way to reject so-called cookie trackers used by online advertisers to track an individual’s browsing history.
