South Korea fines Meta $15 million for collecting user data

South Korean data watchdogs, PIPC (Personal Information Protection Commission), have fined Meta 21.6 billion won ($15 million) for illegally collecting and distributing user data to advertisers. 

AP reported that after a four-year investigation, PIPC found that Meta had collected data from around 980,000 users without an agreement. The data included religious and political views and information about same-sex unions. 

PIPC said that Meta collected this information between July 2018 and March 2022 and shared it with around 4,000 advertisers without permission. South Korea's privacy laws offer "strict protection for information related to personal beliefs, political views and sexual behaviour, and bars companies from processing or using such data without the specific consent of the person involved."

PIPC disclosed that Meta collected this information by analyzing user engagement on the platform and advertisements they clicked on. 

“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 Eun Jung, who led the investigation against Meta, told AP. 

The watchdog added that Meta failed to implement basic security features on the platform, which led to hackers being able to use inactive pages to fake identities and request password resets for other Facebook users.