Meta receives millions of fines imposed by European privacy regulator

Meta will be fined 17 million euros by the Irish privacy watchdog. According to the Irish Data Protection Commission, Meta has not done enough to prevent a data breach in 2018. This leak exposed data from millions of users.

Meta will be fined for a major Facebook data breach in 2018. The Irish DPC told Bloomberg that Meta “failed to take both technical and organizational measures” to prevent the leak. Facebook writes in a statement that it has adjusted the data storage since 2018.

The data breach in 2018 allegedly affected 50 million accounts. The privacy watchdog started several investigations into data leaks at Meta services. It is not the first time that Meta has been fined by the Irish regulator. Last September, Meta was fined 225 million euros for violating the GDPR. Meta would not be transparent enough about what data the company shares from users. It is one of the highest GDPR fines to date.

Tech giants are increasingly under a magnifying glass by the regulators. Not just for violating privacy laws, but for abusing their dominant position in the market. Last month, European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager criticized Apple’s attitude towards app makers. According to Vestager, the tech giant would rather pay fines than adjust its conditions to comply with European regulations.

Meta also has a tense relationship with the European Union, because it has to comply with new legislation for transatlantic data transfer. According to this legislation, Meta is not allowed to just send data from European users to the United States. Meta then threatened to no longer offer its services in Europe, although the company came back to that later.