Facebook Acts Up, Meta is Fined by Ireland forIDR 4.3 Trillion

Ireland's data privacy regulator fined 265 million euros equivalent to IDR 4.3 trillion on Meta. (photo: twitter @DPCIreland)

JAKARTA - Irish data privacy regulator fined Meta 265 million euros, equivalent to IDR 4.3 trillion, over its social media act Facebook which violated European Union (EU) data privacy laws, bringing the total fine to nearly 1 billion euros or IDR 16.3 billion trillion.

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) issued a sanction against Meta for failing to protect millions of Facebook users' personal data, such as phone numbers and email addresses, from being deleted and published on the internet. The penalty is the result of an investigation, which began in April 2021.

In a statement, the DPC said Meta had been fined for violating part of the EU's GDPR rules which cover technical and organizational measures aimed at protecting user data.

Meta says the data has been removed from Facebook. “We made changes to our system during this time, including removing the ability to scrape our features in this way using a telephone number,” said Meta as quoted from The Independent, Tuesday, November 29.

"Unauthorized data scraping is unacceptable and against our rules," he added.

This makes the total fines issued by Meta in the last 18 months to more than IDR 16.3 trillion. Last September, the DPC also fined Instagram 405 million euros, equivalent to IDR 6.6 trillion. Meta plans to file an appeal.

Likewise, in March, the regulator also issued a fine of 17 million euros, equivalent to IDR 277 billion, against Facebook for violating EU privacy laws.

Last year Meta's messaging service WhatsApp was also fined 225 million euros or Rp3.6 trillion by the DPC for violating EU laws on transparency and sharing user information with other companies owned by Facebook.

DPC also oversees Apple, Google, Tiktok and other tech giants due to the location of their EU headquarters in Ireland. There are currently 40 open requests to the company, including 13 involving Meta.