Meta fined nearly $900 million in Facebook photo privacy ruling
Italy's privacy watchdog has fined Meta €805 million ($887 million) for Facebook accessing users' photos and videos on Android devices without informed consent.
Italy's privacy watchdog has fined Meta €805 million ($887 million) over Facebook's access to users' photos and videos on Android devices without obtaining informed consent. The regulator investigated a Facebook feature that suggests photos and videos from users' phone galleries for posting on the platform.
According to the Italian Data Protection Authority, the feature is enabled by default through a single permission covering multiple functions. The authorization notice fails to make clear that users are allowing Facebook to suggest content from their galleries.
This is a simple feature that helps people share photos and videos on Facebook. Users must grant permission on their device before the feature can operate, and they can change that permission at any time in their settings.
Regulatory Concerns
Once full permission is granted, the app can continuously access the device's entire photo and video archive, with users and regulators unable to verify what information is actually being accessed or used. The watchdog gave Meta 60 days to change how its Facebook app requests consent for the feature and explicitly inform users about its purpose.
The authority said the breach potentially affected a significant number of people, noting that Italy has an estimated 20 million Android users. It also accused Meta of failing to cooperate with the investigation and may separately investigate a feature introduced earlier this year that allows cloud processing of Facebook users' gallery content.
Global Penalties
Last month, a court in New Mexico ordered Mark Zuckerberg's company to pay $25 billion in civil penalties for violating the US state's Unfair Practices Act. The New Mexico Department of Justice described the verdict as a "landmark victory," saying it "has secured one of the largest financial penalties against a corporation in U.S. history."
The case followed the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the British political consulting firm obtained personal data from tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent. Meta also faces a potential fine of up to 6% of its worldwide annual turnover after European Union regulators preliminarily found that the US tech giant had failed to adequately assess risks to users' wellbeing from features that encourage compulsive use.
Related
