Meta was fined nearly $900 million: the company accessed users' personal photos and videos without consent
Meta announced it will appeal the decision.
Italy's data protection authority has fined Meta 805 million euros (approximately $887 million) for accessing the photos and videos of Android device users without their separate consent. Reuters reported this.
According to the authority, personal files were accessed through a feature in the Facebook app that recommends content for posts to users based on photos and videos in their phone gallery. In this case, separate consent was not obtained from users specifically for this feature, and they were not provided with sufficient information about it.
The Italian regulator obligated Meta to disable the feature by default and to obtain separate consent from users for its use. The company was given 60 days for this.
A Meta representative told Reuters that the company will appeal the decision. They emphasized that this feature helps users share photos and videos on Facebook. For the feature to work, users must grant the appropriate permission in their device settings and can change it at any time. The company considers the fine disproportionate.
Reuters notes that the investigation, which began in 2025, did not cover whether Meta used users' photos and videos to train artificial intelligence models. Meta has previously denied using data for such purposes.
Additionally, Italy's data protection authority has reserved the right to separately investigate a new feature launched in 2026 that allows users' gallery content to be processed in a cloud system.
