The parent company of Facebook, Meta, was fined more than $400 million by an Irish regulatory body
for breaking data privacy rules in relation to information concerning children on Instagram.
Early this month, Meta was penalized by the Irish Data Protection Commission for violating the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
Children's data associated with social media accounts, video games, and other online accounts is given specific protection under the privacy law, which went into effect in 2018.
According to The New York Times, the Irish regulator first opened an investigation in 2020 in response to claims that Instagram had a setting that made accounts of users
between the ages of 13 and 17 public by default and permitted teenagers who had business accounts on the app to make their email and phone numbers public.
According to the Times, several of these corporate accounts were connected to would-be influencers.
After a $742 million fine against Amazon, it is the second-highest fine ever imposed under the GDPR.
Due to infractions on its messaging service, WhatsApp, the firm was fined $223 million last year. For data breaches in March this year, the corporation was also fined $17 million.