WATCH THE VIDEO HERE Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, has been hit with a 21.62 billion won ($15.67 million) fine by South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission. The penalty comes after an investigation revealed that Meta collected sensitive user data without legal authorization and shared it with advertisers. The commission found that Meta gathered personal details, including religious beliefs, political opinions, and sexual orientation, from approximately 980,000 South Korean Facebook users without obtaining proper consent. These sensitive data points were then leveraged by around 4,000 advertisers to target users more effectively. According to the commission’s statement on Tuesday, Meta analyzed users’ behaviour on Facebook, such as pages they liked and ads they clicked, to develop advertising themes based on their sensitive information. The case in South Korea is not an isolated incident, as global scrutiny over data privacy violations by tech giants continues to intensify. In a separate but related matter, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) recently imposed a €310 million fine on LinkedIn.
Meta fined $15.67 million in South Korea for misusing sensitive Facebook user data
