Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) today announced that it had imposed a fine of €265 million & corrective measures on Meta, owner of Facebook, after it concluded an inquiry into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (MPIL).
The decision also included a reprimand & an order requiring MPIL to bring its processing into compliance by taking a range of specified remedial actions within a set timeframe.
The DPC commenced this inquiry on April 14, 2021, on media reports into the discovery of a collated dataset of Facebook personal data that had been made available on the Internet. The scope of the inquiry concerned an examination & assessment of Facebook Search, Facebook Messenger Contact Importer & Instagram Contact Importer tools in relation to processing carried out by Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (‘MPIL’) during the period between May 25, 2018 & September 2019, said the DPC. The material issues in this inquiry concerned questions of compliance with the GDPR obligation for Data Protection by Design and Default. The DPC examined the implementation of technical & organizational measures pursuant to Article 25 GDPR (which deals with this concept).
There was a comprehensive inquiry process, including cooperation with all of the other data protection supervisory authorities within the EU. Those supervisory authorities agreed with the decision of the DPC that Facebook had breached certain GDPR norms.
