The Irish regulator had fined Meta 405 million euros in September for failures in handling the data of minors, and 265 million euros in November for not sufficiently protecting users' data. Thursday's Whatsapp fine was also far lower because it did not relate to targeted advertising. The DPC said its more recent fine was considerably less because of a 225 million euro fine imposed on WhatsApp for 'for breaches of this and other transparency obligations over the same period of time.' Meta announced its intention to appeal the 4 January decision, adding the regulatory ruling did not prevent targeted or personalised advertising. In that instance, the company, co-founded by social media magnate Mark Zuckerberg, was given only three months to respond to comply with the Irish regulator. The breaches are similar to those explained in the regulator's action against Meta earlier in January.īut the earlier decision also accused the Meta platforms of breaking rules over the processing of personal data for the purpose of targeted advertising. 'We disagree with the decision and we intend to appeal.' 'We strongly believe that the way the service operates is both technically and legally compliant,' a WhatsApp spokesperson said. In response on Thursday, Meta said it was opposed to the DPC decision and would look to overturn it. The fine was imposed by the Irish regulator because Meta - along with other US tech firms - has its European headquarters in Dublin. It currently has 40 inquiries open into such companies, including 13 involving Meta.In addition, Meta relied on an incorrect legal basis 'for its processing of personal data for the purposes of service improvement and security,' the DPC added, giving the group six months to comply. The DPC regulates Apple, Google, TikTok and other technology platforms owing to the location of their EU headquarters in Ireland. We are likely to see increased debate about whether such fines actually influence corporate behaviour or if some companies simply see them as an added cost of doing business.” “GDPR envisaged the imposition of such fines in part to serve as a deterrent to other companies which might consider breaching the law. “By any measure, these are significant fines,” said David Hackett, head of data protection in the Ireland office of law firm Addleshaw Goddard. However, one legal expert questioned whether strong enforcement of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation would have the deterrent effect that it intended. In September Meta was fined €405m for letting teenagers set up Instagram accounts that publicly displayed their phone numbers and email addresses, while in March the watchdog fined Meta €17m for further GDPR breaches and in September last year it fined Meta’s WhatsApp €225m over “severe” and “serious” infringements of GDPR. The punishment brings the total amount of fines imposed on Meta by the DPC to nearly €1bn since September last year. Unauthorised data scraping is unacceptable and against our rules.” In a statement Meta said: “We made changes to our systems during the time in question, including removing the ability to scrape our features in this way using phone numbers. In addition to the fine, it “imposed a reprimand and an order” requiring Meta to “bring its processing into compliance by taking a range of specified remedial actions within a particular timeframe”. The watchdog said a “significant” number of the users were from the EU. The data appeared on a hacking website last year, prompting an investigation by the DPC, which is responsible for regulating Meta across the EU.

Meta breach