Irish data authority fined $277 million to Meta for DATA BREACH; Deets inside

New Delhi: The Irish data authority has fined Meta Platforms €265m ($277 million) for breaking European privacy laws, bringing the total amount of European fines against Facebook's parent firm since last year to almost $900 million. The 2021 data breach that resulted in the online publication of the personal data of more than 500 million Facebook users cost Meta.

Most (or "substantial") users were from the European Union. The Mark Zuckerberg-led business must "bring its processing into compliance by adopting a range of specified remedial activities within a defined deadline" according to an order and a reprimand that the watchdog "issued" in addition to the fine. (Also Read: WhatsApp data breach: A step-by-step guide to check whether your data is leaked or not)

Following the online discovery of user data including Facebook IDs, names, phone numbers, residences, birthdates, and email addresses of people from more than 100 different countries last year, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) launched an investigation. All EU-wide Meta regulation falls under the purview of DPC. (Also Read: THESE are the Top 5 Indian IT billionaires in Pics; Check their net worth, other key details)

According to The Guardian, the commission found that the corporation had violated two sections of the EU's data protection legislation.

In the meantime, Meta claimed that during the relevant period, adjustments were made to its systems, including the removal of the capability to use phone numbers to scrape their features. According to Meta, unauthorized data scraping is prohibited by our policies and is unacceptable.

The Irish regulator, which shared a draught judgement with them last month as part of the EU's "one-stop shop" approach for supervising large corporations, said in a statement that other relevant EU regulators had concurred with the decision made on Monday.

In September, the Irish authority already penalised Meta €405 million for allowing juveniles to create Instagram accounts that showed their phone numbers and email addresses to the public, making this the most recent of multiple penalties meted out to Meta. The watchdog penalized Meta €17 million in March for more GDPR violations.