South Korean Regulators Fine Meta $15 Million Over Data Privacy Breach

South Korean Regulators requested Meta to pay 21.62 billion won—around $15.68 million—in fines for illegally sharing users’ private information.

According to ABC News, South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission performed a 4-year investigation—from July 2018 to March 2022—and revealed that Meta illegally collected private information from 980,000 Facebook users and shared this data with over 4,000 advertisers.

It’s not the first time an organization has revealed that Meta has shared users’ private data for advertising. The American marketing firm Cox Media Group recently admitted to getting user data from multiple tech companies including Meta.

The information gathered by Meta South Korea included political views, religion, same-sex unions, and more. The privacy laws in South Korea forbid sharing private information like sexual behavior, political views, and beliefs without the person’s consent.

Lee Eun Jung, a commission director who led the investigation on Meta, said Meta had categories according to users’ interests and the ads they clicked on on the platform.

“While Meta collected this sensitive information and used it for individualized services, they made only vague mentions of this use in their data policy and did not obtain specific consent,” Lee said.

Lee also criticized Meta’s security measures and accused them of putting users at risk by not taking basic actions like removing inactive pages.

Meta in Korea said they would “carefully review” the decision without further comments.

South Korea is not the only country going against Meta’s lack of protection towards its users these past few days. Last week, Brazil sued Meta—and other platforms—for not preventing addiction issues in minors.