WASHINGTON ― Facebook parent company Meta Ireland has been fined a total of €390 million ($414 million) for breaches of European Union (EU) data protection rules, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) said.
This decision pertains to Meta’s use of private user information for the personalisation of ads on its platforms – Facebook and Instagram.
The privacy regulator said that the company can’t use its contracts with its platform users to justify sending based on their online activities.
The privacy regulator has given the company three months to comply.
They also said that the nature and extent of the data processing carried out under the Terms of Service was not transparent, and therefore also in violation of the GDPR.
However, according to Irish broadcaster RTE, Meta has said that it will appeal the substance of the rulings and the fines handed down by the DPC.
Over the last two years, the DPC has fined Meta over 1.2 billion euros.
In September 2021, Meta-owned WhatsApp was hit with a 225 million euro fine for breaches of data protection rules.
Next, in September 2022, Meta appealed against a record fine of 405 million euros, imposed on its Instagram service by the DPC for breaches relating to the processing of children’s data.
