Italian regulators fine Facebook parent company Meta 880 million dollars to access users’ photos without their “specific” consent, the country’s data protection authority announced on Saturday.
Through the Facebook application for Android devices, Meta accessed photographs, videos and associated metadata belonging to Italian users “without obtaining specific consent and without properly informing them”, the authority said in a statement.
Saturday’s latest fine is one of the largest an Italian authority has ever imposed on a tech giant. In 2021, Amazon was fined more than 1.1 billion euros, or approximately $1.2 billion, for violating competition law.
This sum was later reduced on appeal to 752 million euros, or approximately $829 million.
Meta could also appeal the latest fine. The technology company had not responded to a request for comment as of Saturday afternoon.
Meta has been fined or ordered to pay settlements over privacy concerns. In September, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion to the state after a jury found the social media company deceived consumers for years on its data privacy policies. The company said it disagreed with the jury’s verdict.
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