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Ireland’s data privacy regulator has agreed to pay a record 405 million euros ($402 million) to social network Instagram following an investigation into its handling of children’s data, a spokesman for the watchdog said.
Instagram plans to appeal the fine, a spokeswoman for its parent company, Meta, said in an emailed statement.
The investigation, which began in 2020, focused on minor users between the ages of 13 and 17 who were allowed to operate business accounts, which resulted in the disclosure of the user’s phone number and email address.
“We made our final decision last Friday, which includes a fine of 405 million euros,” said the spokesperson for the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland, the CEO of the parent company of Instagram and Facebook ( FB).
Full details of the decision will be released next week, he said.
Instagram updated its settings a year ago and has introduced new features to keep young people safe with their information, said a Meta spokesman.
The spokesperson said Instagram does not agree on how the fine was calculated and will carefully review the decision.
The DPC controls Facebook, Apple ( AAPL ), Google ( GOOGL ) and other tech giants through the location of their EU headquarters in Ireland. About a dozen investigations have been opened against Meta companies, including Facebook and WhatsApp.
WhatsApp was last year fined a record 225 million euros for not complying with EU data rules in 2018.
The Irish regulator finalized a draft decision in the Instagram investigation in December and shared it with other European Union regulators under the bloc’s “one stop shop” system to manage the multinational corporation.
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