Ireland fined Meta €265 million for leaking data of over 500 million Facebook users

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) of Ireland issued a heavy fine to Meta (formerly Facebook) for a major leak of user data.

Here's What We Know

The data leak came to light in April 2021. As it turned out, hackers obtained information on more than 533 million Facebook users and then posted it on an online hacker forum. The data included the full names, phone numbers, locations and birth dates of users on the platform from 2018 to 2019.

Meta officials said attackers took advantage of a vulnerability to do so, which the company has already patched in 2019.

Nonetheless, Meta will have to pay a hefty €265 million fine. The commission found that Meta violated two articles of EU data protection law. The company was also reprimanded and must bring its data processing into compliance with the law.

Incidentally, this is the third fine the DPC has imposed on Meta this year. In March, the DPC fined Meta $18.6 million for poor record-keeping in connection with a series of data breaches in 2018 that exposed up to 30 million Facebook users. The European regulator also fined Meta $402 million in September after investigating Instagram's handling of teenagers' data.

Source: The Verge