For a data breach that was detected in 2021, Ireland declared on Monday that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and WhatsApp, will pay a fine of €265 million (about Rs. 2,261 crore).

Ireland Fines Meta For 2021 Data Breach With More Than Rs. 2,000 Crore

About 533 million information, including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, birthdates, and complete names, were compromised in the data breach and exposed on a public platform before being widely spread online. In April 2021, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) started an investigation. Some well-known EU figures were featured in this leak, including Didier Reynders, the justice commissioner, and Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of Luxembourg.

The Irish Data Protection Commission issued the most recent fine of €265 million. By stating that Meta violated the commission’s privacy protection responsibilities “by design and default,” the authority appeared to be hinting that the products were made in a way that made data vulnerable to such leaks.

A warning and an order to “bring Meta’s processing into compliance by taking a range of specified remedial activities within a given deadline” were also issued by the authority, according to the statement.

During the time, Facebook said that the information was “scraped” from the internet due to a weakness in their technology that existed before to September 2019. Through automated software, hackers utilize “scraping” to locate publically available information. In 2019, this vulnerability was fixed.

A representative for Meta said that the business had “made adjustments to our systems throughout the relevant period, including eliminating the capability to use phone numbers to scrape our features in this manner. Unauthorized data scraping is prohibited by our policies and is unacceptable, and we will continue to collaborate with our peers to address this industry concern “According to Politico.

Before the authority issues three further rulings against the corporation, Facebook’s parent company Meta has the right to appeal the judgment in Irish courts.

References

Sant, S. van, & Manancourt, V. (2022, November 28). Ireland fines Meta €265M for ‘data scraping’ leak. POLITICO. https://www.politico.eu/article/data-protection-commission-is-fining-meta-e265-million/

O’Donovan, B. (2022, November 28). Meta fined €265m by Irish watchdog for data breach. RTE.ie. https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/1128/1338739-meta-fined-265m-by-irish-data-watchdog/