Italy fines Meta 805 million euros over Facebook photo access

Italy’s data privacy regulator has fined Meta 805 million euros ($887 million), saying Facebook accessed photos and videos on Android users’ phones without obtaining specific consent or clearly explaining how the material would be used.

The case centers on a Facebook feature that suggests images and videos from a user’s phone gallery as possible posts. About 20 million Italian Android users could have been affected, according to the regulator, known as Garante. It ordered Meta to turn off the feature by default and obtain separate consent from users; the BBC reported that the company has 60 days to do so.

Garante said Facebook sought access to phone galleries through a single, app-wide authorization. The notice shown before users granted access did not make clear that Facebook could also use gallery content to generate posting suggestions, the regulator said.

The feature, called “Get suggestions from gallery when browsing Facebook,” accessed photos, videos and associated metadata stored on Italian users’ smartphones “without specific consent and without informing them,” Garante said, according to Al Jazeera. The regulator said the process for obtaining permission was too generic for users to understand what they were allowing, and the suggestion feature was enabled by default.

Garante said the practice violated Italian law implementing the European Union’s ePrivacy directive, Al Jazeera reported. The regulator cited “the high number of people affected” in setting the penalty, according to the BBC. It said the issue was “still ongoing for those who have not updated the app and for those who have already given their consent to the system.”

The authority also pointed to “Meta’s lack of co-operation,” the BBC reported. Al Jazeera said Garante considered a previous violation that led to a fine in 2019. The 805 million-euro penalty amounts to roughly 0.47 percent of Meta’s global turnover, according to Al Jazeera.

The two outlets characterized the fine’s standing differently: Al Jazeera described it as by far the largest ever imposed by the Italian regulator, while the BBC called it among the largest penalties an Italian authority has imposed on a technology company.

The proceedings did not examine whether gallery content might have been used to train artificial intelligence, an allegation Meta denies, Al Jazeera reported. Meta has not publicly commented on the Italian decision and can appeal it, according to Al Jazeera. The BBC said it had contacted the company for comment.

The BBC also reported that, a month earlier, a judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after finding that it had spent years misleading the public about its handling of Facebook user data. The BBC described that ruling as the company’s largest fine over its business practices.