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On Monday, Ireland’s data privacy regulator penalised social media juggernaut Facebook 265 million euros ($277 million), raising the total amount it has fined parent company Meta to over 1 billion euros.
The punishment came as a consequence of an investigation that was launched in April 2021 in response to the finding of a compiled dataset of Facebook user data that had been made publicly accessible online. Additionally, Facebook was mandated to take a number of corrective actions.
The sanction imposed on Monday is the fourth that one of Meta’s companies has received from Ireland’s Data Privacy Commissioner (DPC). It is Meta’s primary privacy watchdog in the EU and has 13 open inquiries involving the social media industry.
The watchdog fined Meta’s Instagram subsidiary a record-breaking 405 million euros in September; Meta intends to appeal.
Due to their EU headquarters being in Ireland, technology behemoths Apple, Google, Tiktok, and other are governed by the DPC. There are presently 40 open investigations into these companies, including the 13 involving Meta.
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 concurred with the decision made on Monday.