Meta issued a giant fine for illegal surveillance

Italian regulators issued Meta Corporation* (the activities of the corporation are recognized in the Russian Federation as extremist and banned), a fine of 805 million euros for organizing covert surveillance of its customers. This information was distributed by the ANSA news agency.

The violation is related to the “Get hints from the gallery” feature built into the Facebook mobile app** (also banned in Russia) for the Android operating system. This tool encouraged users to automatically use photos and videos from their personal library as ideas to create new publications.

The U.S. company did not ask people for separate permission to scan the gallery, limiting itself to a general consent to use the program. Moreover, the option to access media files on devices was activated automatically, which forced users to turn it off in the settings. Now, the corporation is required to obtain separate consent from Italian customers to use this feature, explain in detail the principles of its operation, and leave this option deactivated by default.

It is worth noting that earlier the court of the US state of New Mexico has already ordered Meta to pay a whopping $ 25 billion in the case of gross violation of confidentiality and illegal collection of personal data of customers of the social network.

*banned in Russia, recognized in Russia as extremist.** The social network is banned in Russia, belongs to the Meta Corporation.

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