Arabic version: إيطاليا تغرّم ميتا 805 ملايين يورو بسبب الوصول إلى الصور
According to BBC News, Italian regulators have fined Meta €805m (£670m; $887m) over the social media giant’s access to Android users’ photos without their specific consent.
Italy’s Data Protection Authority said Meta did not properly inform about 20 million smartphone users that it could access their photos and videos through a feature in the Facebook app. The fine is among the largest an Italian authority has imposed on a technology giant.
The case concerns a feature that suggests photos and videos from a user’s phone gallery as ideas for Facebook posts. Facebook requested access to photo galleries through a single app-wide authorisation, but the regulator said a preceding notice did not clearly explain that this would also let Facebook generate suggestions using gallery images.
The authority has given Meta 60 days to disable the feature by default and to seek users’ consent separately. It said the penalty reflected the high number of people affected, that the issue remained ongoing for people who had not updated the app and those who had already consented to the system, as well as what it described as Meta’s lack of co-operation. The BBC has contacted Meta for comment.
Last month, Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, was ordered by a US judge in New Mexico to pay $25bn (£18.6bn). The judge found the company had spent years lying to the public about how it handled Facebook user data.
