EU fine of $402 million assessed against Meta Over Instagram's privacy settings for children

The Irish Data Protection Commission fined Meta $405 million ($402 million) for violating Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by handling children's privacy settings on Instagram. According to Politico, this is the third (and largest) fine the regulator has imposed against Meta under Europe's GDPR laws.

According to a spokesperson for the DPC, additional details about the decision will be available next week. Children's accounts on the photo-sharing app were fined due to their privacy settings. The DPC had been investigating Instagram over children's use of business accounts, which made personal data like email addresses and phone numbers publicly visible. The investigation also covered Instagram's policy of defaulting all new accounts, including teens, publicly viewable.

According to a Meta spokesperson, "the inquiry was focused on old settings that had been updated over a year ago. Whenever a teen joins Instagram, their account is set to private, so only those they know can see what they post, and adults cannot message teens who don't follow them. The DPC engaged fully with us throughout their inquiry, and we are carefully reviewing their final decision."

As Instagram faces intense scrutiny over its handling of child safety issues, Meta could still appeal the fine. After a whistleblower claimed that Meta ignored its own research indicating that Instagram Kids could negatively impact teens' mental health, the company stopped developing an app. Since then, the app has added more safety features, including changing default settings on teen accounts to private. —Crypto Weekly