While it may have changed its name as an attempted rebrand, Meta is still being made to pay for problems back when it was still Facebook. This as the Ireland Data Protection Commission (DPC) has issued a fine of €17 million for data breaches that date back to 2018.

At this point it is difficult to keep up with the numerous fines and breaches that Meta has allowed on its watch, but this specific fine pertains to 12 separate data breaches that Meta informed the DPC about between June and December of 2018, where as many as 30 million users may have been impacted.

“The inquiry examined the extent to which Meta Platforms complied with the requirements of GDPR Articles 5(1)(f), 5(2), 24(1) and 32(1) in relation to the processing of personal data relevant to the twelve breach notifications,” the DPC unpacked in a press release.

“As a result of its inquiry, the DPC found that Meta Platforms infringed Articles 5(2) and 24(1) GDPR.  The DPC found that Meta Platforms failed to have in place appropriate technical and organisational measures which would enable it to readily demonstrate the security measures that it implemented in practice to protect EU users’ data, in the context of the twelve personal data breaches,” it added.

This specific fine relates to how Meta handles record keeping and while this €17 million figure is likely something the company can find lying in between its office couch cushions, the 30 million user figure mentioned earlier is only a fraction of the 533 million users who were impacted by a data breach last year.

As such, if the DPC wishes to continue its investigations into Meta and its poor record keeping, far larger fines may be on the way.

For now though, this latest fine can be tacked onto the WhatsApp-related one from the DPC.

[Image – Photo by Dima Solomin on Unsplash]