A European privacy regulator announced that it is fining Instagram’s parent company, Meta, $402 million for mishandling teenagers’ data.
The Ireland-based Data Protection Commission confirmed Monday that it had finalized the decisions and fines on Friday and intended to release full details about the decision later this week, according to The Verge. The penalty is the finalization of a two-year investigation into allegations that Instagram had allowed underage users to set up business accounts that share personal data publicly and that it had made some underage accounts public by default. Both allegations would be considered a violation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation rules.
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While Meta has agreed to review the fine, the company says it is based on old data. “This inquiry focused on old settings that we updated over a year ago, and we’ve since released many new features to help keep teens safe and their information private,” a Meta spokesperson told Politico. “Anyone under 18 automatically has their account set to private when they join Instagram, so only people they know can see what they post, and adults can’t message teens who don’t follow them. We engaged fully with the DPC throughout their inquiry, and we’re carefully reviewing their final decision.”
The DPC is expected to make a final decision by the end of this week.
Meta has been the target of several fines by the DPC in the past. The company was fined in Oct. 2021 after Whatsapp failed to provide sufficient privacy protections. It also received a smaller penalty in March 2022 over its record-keeping practices.
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Meta has been accused of not appropriately protecting user data. A security researcher claimed in August that the company injected code into third-party websites via its in-app browser, thus allowing it to track user interactions outside of its websites.
