Meta Corporation, a prominent U.S.-based tech entity, once more incurs substantial fines due to EU data violations.
American corporation Meta, which oversees platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is facing another hefty financial penalty for infringing EU data protection regulations. On Friday, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) handed down a €91 million fine. The DPC accuses Meta of neglecting to properly secure user passwords and responding poorly to a security incident.
The inquiry began in April 2019 following Meta's announcement that numerous user passwords had been "unintentionally" saved in an unencrypted format. The incident reportedly took place in January 2019, impacting approximately 36 million Facebook and Instagram users in European Economic Area member states. The DPC claims Meta didn't notify them until March 2019.
Meta acknowledges that "some user passwords were momentarily kept in a readable format within our internal data systems." However, they assure that "swift measures were implemented to correct this issue" upon request. "There's no indication that these passwords were misused or inappropriately viewed."
Meta has previously been hit with several multi-million-dollar fines for infractions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that took effect in 2018. Despite this, the repercussions appear to be mere deterrents. Meta's second-quarter net profit surged by 73% compared to the previous year, reaching $13.5 billion.
Meta was criticized by the DPC for not adequately protecting ['Passwords for users'], as numerous user passwords were stored in an unencrypted format. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) also accused Meta of delaying in notifying them about this security incident.
