Data siphoned from over 500 million users: Ireland fines metagroup National security reportedly at risk: US bans Huawei devices

After the publication of personal data of no less than 533 million Facebook users, the parent company Meta in Ireland has to pay a fine of 265 million euros. The fines for Meta in the EU state reach 910 million euros in the last 14 months.

Ireland’s data protection regulator, DPC, said on Monday it had completed its investigation, which began in April 2021 after names, phone numbers and email addresses were published on a hackers’ forum. The data protection authorities of the other EU Member States had cooperated with the Irish authority and agreed with their decision.

User data skimmed 2019

Facebook said it would review the ruling. Before September 2019, criminals would have skimmed (scraped) the publicly available data and then put it online on platforms. However, Facebook’s systems were not hacked.

It is the fourth time since September 2021 that the Irish Authority has imposed a heavy fine on Meta. At that time, subsidiary WhatsApp had to pay 225 million euros for violating data protection rules.

In March 2022, the parent company was also fined €17 million for data protection breaches. In September, the DPC fined Instagram €405 million for serious violations of children’s privacy rules.

Meta has appealed both the Instagram and WhatsApp decisions. Now judges have to decide. A ruling is believed to set a precedent for future data breach investigations.

International technology groups such as Meta are a major employer in Ireland. After the decision of the American social media group to cut thousands of jobs worldwide, hundreds of jobs are at risk.

(dsc/sda/awp/dpa)