Meta Fined €265m For Facebook Centralized User Data's Breach

PNT

Nov 30, 2022•1 min read

Meta Fined €265m For Facebook Centralized User Data's Breach

After the information of more than half a billion users was exposed on a hacking website, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) fined Facebook owner Meta €265 million on Monday, November 28.

The commission stated specifically that it had punished Meta for failing to create Facebook in a way that would safeguard users' data from breaches.

The DPC opened an inquiry in April 2021 when data containing the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of up to 533 million individuals was discovered on an internet hacker site.

Facebook claimed at the time that the data, some of which had previously been published online some years prior, was "scraped" but not "hacked" by bad actors using a flaw in its systems before September 2019.

"Scraping" uses automated software to lift public information from the internet that can then end up being distributed in online forums.

The social network claimed to have fixed the flaw in 2019 to stop any additional data harvesting.

By developing blockchain social media apps that do not demand users to disclose their email addresses or phone numbers, several blockchain businesses have made an effort to resolve the issue. For instance, the social media apps Bitclout and Blockster let users log up with merely an Ethereum wallet.

The "EIP-4361" proposal from the Ethereum Developers would standardize the wallet login procedure for all apps. Supporters believe that this may make it unnecessary for social networking platforms to request users' sensitive personal information, potentially preventing future data breaches of this type.

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