Ireland fines Meta over $410M over breaching data privacy

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - Ireland's data privacy watchdog on Wednesday fined Meta €390 million (over $410M) for breaching data protection rules at Facebook and Instagram.

In a statement, Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced the conclusion of two inquiries into Meta Ireland in connection with the delivery of its Facebook and Instagram services. Both the complaints were made in 2018.

"Final decisions have now been made by the DPC in which it has fined Meta Ireland €210 million ($222.6M) (for breaches of the GDPR relating to its Facebook service), and €180 million ($190.8M) (for breaches in relation to its Instagram service)," said the commission.

The DPC said it found that Meta breached transparency obligations, due to which users "had insufficient clarity" as to what processing operations were being carried out on their personal data, and for what purposes.

It said that Meta Ireland also did not rely on users’ consent "as providing a lawful basis for its processing of their personal data."

The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR is the EU regulation on data protection and privacy.

Meta Ireland has also been directed to bring its data processing operations into compliance within a period of three months.​​​​​​​