Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd., the Irish subsidiary of Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc., was been fined €265 million ($274 million) today by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission for breaching the European Union General Data Protection Regulation.
The commission launched an investigation in April 2021 following media reports that a collected dataset of Facebook personal data had been made available on the internet. The data was related to Facebook Search, Facebook Messenger Contact Importer and Instagram Contact Importer tools that was gathered between May 2018 and September 2019.
The commission considered whether the published data complied with the GDPR obligation of Data Protection by Design and Default, Article 25 of the regulation. Having undertaken a comprehensive inquiry, the commission found that Meta breached Articles 25(1) and 25(2) of the GDPR.
Along with the fine, Meta was also ordered to bring its processing into compliance by taking a range of specified remedial actions within a particular timeframe.
The fine is not the first time Meta and its subsidiaries have been penalized by Ireland’s regulator. Meta was fined $402 million in September after…
