Meta fined $276 million over Facebook data leak involving more than 533 million users
by Emma Roth from The Verge - All Posts on (#6696H)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Ireland's Data Protection Commission hit Meta with a 265 million fine (about $276 million USD) after an April 2021 data leak exposed the information of more than 533 million users. The DPC started the investigation shortly after news of the leak broke and involved an examination into whether Facebook complied with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws.
The leaked information, spotted by Insider, was posted to an online hacking forum and included the full names, phone numbers, locations, and birthdates of users on the platform from 2018 to 2019. At the time, Meta said the bad actor obtained the information through a vulnerability that the company fixed in 2019 and that this was the same information involved in a prior...