South Korea has fined Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook, 21.62 billion won ($15.67 million) over privacy violations.
South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission found that Meta collected sensitive data from around 980,000 South Korean users on Facebook, covering topics such as religion, political views, and sexual orientation, and shared it with approximately 4,000 advertisers without user consent.
Additionally, Meta reportedly used this data to create advertising themes, categorizing users based on sensitive information.
The agency also noted Meta’s refusal to grant users access to their personal information and failure to prevent a data leak affecting about 10 South Koreans.
Meta Korea declined to comment on the matter.
The commission said the tech giant failed to clearly state where the personal data was being used in its data policy and did not seek user consent or take further protective measures.
Meta also allowed hackers to change the passwords of disabled accounts by accepting their fake IDs, resulting in the personal information of 10 South Korean users being leaked, the commission said.
As of July 25, 2024, South Korea had the 6th fastest mobile internet and 31st fastest broadband speeds at 139Mbit/s and 150Mbit/s respectively. South Korea has around 40 million mobile Internet customers. Leading telecom operators in South Korea are KT, SK Telecom, and LG U+.
