Meta, the parent company of American social networking giant Facebook, has been fined 17 17 million for violating European data protection rules. The decision follows an inquiry by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) into a series of “twelve data breach notifications received between June 7 and December 4, 2018”.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, concluded that it had failed to take steps to protect users’ data in the European Union, the press release explains. The DPC states that its decision represents the views of other regulators across the EU.

Ireland, a member of the European Union based in Europe for many multinational technology companies such as Apple and Google, is particularly interested in taxing personal data (RGPD, or GDPR in English). “These best sanctions, which we have updated since 2018, do not fail to protect people’s information,” a Meta spokeswoman told AFP.

“We take our obligations under GDPR seriously,” he added. GDPR regulators provide broad latitudes to allow companies that do not adequately protect users’ data.