Facebook: a fine of 17 million euros in connection with the GDPR and data

Facebook has been slapped on the knuckles over the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, so the social network is fined 17 million euros by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) ).

A fine for Facebook in Europe

This follows a regulator investigation into a series of 12 data breach notifications received between June 7 and December 4, 2018. The Commission concluded that Meta (parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) had failed to put in place measures to protect the data of its users in the European Union, explains the press release. She points out that her decision also represents the opinion of other regulators across the European Union.

Ireland, a member of the European Union where many multinational technology companies such as Apple or Google have their European headquarters, in particular due to advantageous taxation, has played a leading role in the application of the GDPR. The GDPR gives regulators wide latitude to sanction companies that do not sufficiently protect their users’ data.

“This fine sanctions practices from 2018 that we have since updated, and not a failure to protect people’s information”said a spokesperson for Meta. “We take our obligations under the GDPR seriously”.