Social networking giant Meta was fined €251 million this week over a 2018 security breach at Facebook that left millions of accounts compromised.
The fine was handed down by Ireland’s privacy watchdog, which acts on behalf of the European Union.
The security breach allowed hackers to access personal data from 29 million accounts, 3 million of which were in Europe. They were able to access names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and religious beliefs, according to the Irish regulator DPC. The security breach was open for two weeks, from 14 to 28 September 2018.
The regulator in Ireland is taking action at the European level because the European headquarters of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is in Ireland.
Little impression
Meta is often fined in the European Union. The previous fine (91 million euros) dates from September, and in recent years, there have been regular fines of several hundred million euros. But the punishments, which often follow years after the infringement, probably make little impression.
Meta booked a net profit of more than 15 billion dollars in the third quarter alone.