Milan: Italian regulators fined Facebook parent company Meta 805 million euros ($880 million) for accessing users' photos without their "specific" consent, the country's data protection authority said on Saturday.
Through the Facebook application for Android devices, Meta accessed photographs, videos and related metadata belonging to Italian users "without obtaining specific consent and without properly informing them", the authority said in a statement.
In late October, authorities in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for having misled the state's residents for more than a decade over use of their data -– a record fine for the company, which slammed it as a "tax" on freedom of expression.
Get updated faster and for FREE: Download the Gulf News app now - simply click here.
Saturday's latest fine is among the largest an Italian authority has ever imposed on a tech giant.
In 2021, Amazon received a more than 1.1 billion euros fine for breaching competition law.
That sum was subsequently reduced to 752 million euros on appeal.
Meta may also appeal the latest fine. When contacted, the US group had not responded by Saturday afternoon.
Facebook gallery feature
The penalty imposed on Facebook relates to its gallery suggestions feature, available since 2023, which suggests photos and videos from a user's phone gallery as ideas for posts as they are browsing.