Meta has to pay record penalty of 251 million euros due to data protection injury!

A data leak on Facebook has serious consequences for the parent company Meta. After six years of investigation, the Irish data protection authority DPC Meta sentenced a record penalty of 251 million euros. The leak, which became known in 2018, concerned around 29 million user accounts worldwide, of which around three million in the EU alone. Personal data such as names, email addresses, telephone numbers and even information about religion and gender were accessible to attackers, as the DPC explained in its message.

The management of the Irish data protection authority is concerned about the serious security gaps that can cause such incidents. DPC Vice President Graham Doyle said that the failure to take into account data protection requirements in the entire design and development process can expose individuals to serious risks. The weak point was created by a faulty video upload function that made it possible to recall data over a certain period of time, such as ComputerBase. .

Significant data protection violations

The amount of the fine is no surprise, since Meta was already involved in similar scandals in the past and repeatedly violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This special incident is classified as very serious, since Facebook does not fully report both the security problems and created the necessary documentation. The DPC also indicates a serious risk of misuse of the personal data, which may contain sensitive information such as political references or the sexual orientation that users did not want to reveal.

META now has the option of objecting to the decision of the data protection authority, but the company's previous experience with GDPR is not very comforting. According to a tracker for such violations, Meta ranked at the top of data protection violations at the top, such as Krone reported and thus illustrates how critical the situation for the group is.