Tech and AI
Italy fines Meta a record €805m for letting the Facebook app read Android users’ photos without specific consent
- What happened
- Italy’s data protection authority, the Garante, fined Meta €805m ($887m) over a Facebook feature that scanned phone galleries to suggest photos and videos to post.
- Why it matters
- It is by far the largest fine the Italian regulator has ever imposed, and it says about 20 million Android users may have been affected.
- What’s next
- Meta has 60 days to switch the feature off by default and ask for separate consent; it can appeal and says it strongly disagrees.
How this story developed
- 16:48First report
- 19:162nd source
- 21:283rd source
- 21:28Confirmed
- 16:48First reportHacker News (front page)
- 19:162nd sourceAl Jazeera English
- 21:283rd sourceBBC News World
- 21:28LatestConfirmedWas: Single source
Full story
A gallery feature
Italy’s data protection authority, known as the Garante, fined Meta €805m (about $887m) on Saturday for accessing Android users’ photos without their specific consent, Reuters, Al Jazeera and the BBC reported. Al Jazeera called it by far the largest fine the regulator has ever imposed; the BBC said it is among the largest any Italian authority has handed a tech giant.
The case concerns a Facebook feature called “Get suggestions from gallery when browsing Facebook”, which suggests photos and videos from the phone’s gallery as ideas for posts. According to the Garante, the Facebook app on Android “accessed photos, videos and associated metadata stored on Italian users’ smartphones without specific consent and without informing them”, Al Jazeera reported. The option was switched on by default.
Why the fine is so large
The regulator said Facebook asked for access to the gallery through a single app-wide permission, and that the notice before it did not make clear that this would also let the app generate suggestions from users’ photos, the BBC reported. It found this broke the Italian law that implements the EU’s ePrivacy directive. About 20 million Italian Android users could have been affected.
In setting the amount, the Garante cited the high number of people affected, the fact that the practice is still going on for users who have not updated the app or have already consented, and what it called Meta’s “lack of cooperation”, Al Jazeera and the BBC reported. An earlier violation that led to a fine in 2019 also counted against the company. Al Jazeera put the fine at about 0.47% of Meta’s global turnover. The case did not look at whether the content was used to train artificial intelligence, which Meta denies.
Meta pushes back
Meta has 60 days to turn the feature off by default and to ask for users’ consent separately, the BBC said. The company can appeal.
“We strongly disagree with the [regulator’s] assessment of the facts, its application of the law, and the disproportionate level of the fine.”
Meta, BBC News World
The company told the BBC that people must give permission on their device before the feature works and can change it at any time. Last month a US judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25bn after finding it had spent years misleading the public about how it handled Facebook user data, the BBC noted.