South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission fined Meta $15 million Tuesday for unlawfully collecting and sharing sensitive information from nearly a million Facebook users.
The commission's four-year investigation found that between 2018 and 2022, Meta gathered details on users' political views, religion, sexual orientation, and other private info through their Facebook "likes" and ad clicks. The company then shared that info with some 4,000 advertisers without specific intent.
South Korea's privacy laws prohibit the processing of data tied to personal beliefs, political views, and sexual behavior with explicit user permission. According to commission official Lee Eun Jung, Meta's data policy was vague about this sensitive data use, leading to unauthorized information-sharing for targeted ads.
The watchdog also flagged safety concerns, noting that Meta's insufficient verification measures allowed hackers to misuse inactive pages, leading to identity breaches that affected at least 10 South Korean users.
The latest fine adds to previous penalties Meta has faced in South Korea, including $22 million in 2022 for privacy violations and $4.8 million in 2020 for unauthorized data sharing.
Meta has also been hit with more than $100 million in fines from European regulators for a 2019 security lapse that temporarily exposed user passwords.
Kate McManus ✉
Kate McManus is a New Jersey-based Newsmax writer who's spent more than two decades as a journalist.
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