Ireland fines Meta millions of dollars over security leak

Dublin: Ireland has fined Meta over $100 million due to a security leak.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced the fine in a statement which was imposed due to a 2019 report revealing that Meta had stored millions of users passwords in plain text on the company’s servers.

The DPC conducted several years of investigation into the matter which began in April 2019 under the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

At that time, Meta was still known as Facebook and the company was initially instructed to properly secure users personal data under GDPR regulations.

The investigation results showed that the social media company failed to meet the legal standards of the European Union and did not provide encryption protection for passwords.

As a result, there was a risk that third parties could gain access to sensitive information.

The DPC also found that Meta failed to report the security leak within the required time frame and did not adequately document the incident.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time Meta has been fined under GDPR. In March 2022, the DPC imposed a fine of €17 million on Meta due to a 2018 security leak.