2024-09-30 00:26:32
American technology giant Meta, which owns Facebook, has been fined 91 million euros ($102 million) by the Irish Data Protection Commission, DPA reported.
The fine was imposed because Meta was found to have inadvertently stored user passwords on its internal systems without them being protected by encryption. However, the passwords were not accessible to outsiders, BTA reported.
The problem affected millions of users of social networks “Facebook” and another social network that is owned by “Meta” – “Instagram” (Instagram).
The Irish division of the American company referred the problem to the Data Protection Commission in March 2019.
The Commission has identified numerous violations of the European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Among them, it is stated that “Meta” did not notify a specialist in the company who is responsible for data security. According to the committee, no appropriate measures were used to protect the passwords and no appropriate organizational measures were implemented to protect their confidentiality.
Commission vice-chairman Graham Doyle said it was generally accepted that passwords should not be stored without being protected by encryption because there were risks of abuse if those passwords reached outsiders.
“It should be borne in mind that the passwords at issue in this case are particularly confidential, as they would allow access to user profiles in social networks,” he stressed.