Meta slammed with another fine for mishandling user data

Meta has faced its fair share of fines for breaking various laws worldwide, and South Korea has just added another one to the list. This time, it's once again tied to how Meta handles its users' personal data.

A new report reveals that South Korea has slapped Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, with a fine of 21.62 billion won ($15.67 million). The penalty comes after it was found that Meta had collected sensitive user data and shared it with advertisers without proper legal grounds.

Seoul's data protection agency claims that Meta collected data on around 980,000 South Korean Facebook users, including details on religion, political views, and sexuality, without user consent. This sensitive data was then reportedly shared with roughly 4,000 advertisers.


The agency further claims Meta categorized users based on sensitive aspects, like identifying as North Korean defectors, following specific religions, or being part of LGBTQ+ groups. Moreover, Meta reportedly denied user requests to access their own personal data and failed to protect the information of about 10 South Korean users, which was eventually leaked by hackers.

As I mentioned earlier, Meta's fines over data violations are nothing new – and this latest one isn't even the largest. Not too long ago, the company was hit with a heftier $101.5 million fine for breaking Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules by failing to store Facebook and Instagram passwords securely. And last year? Meta racked up a record-breaking $1.3 billion fine for violating EU data privacy laws.

If Meta wants to avoid racking up fines all over the globe (Australia wants to slam it with a big fine, too, although for how it handles misinformation), maybe it's time it finally rethinks how it handles our personal data – and stops using it without our consent.