21.6 billion won in penalty for "meta" handed over to member sensitive information advertisers

Meta, which collected sensitive information such as religion and political views of Facebook members in Korea and handed it over to advertisers, has been fined 21.6 billion won.

The Personal Information Protection Committee held a general meeting and decided to impose fines and fines of 21.62 billion won on Facebook operator Meta Platforms, which violated the Personal Information Protection Act.

According to the investigation, Meta collected sensitive information such as religious views and political views of about 980,000 Korean members through Facebook profiles and whether they were married to the same sex, and handed it over to advertisers.

Through this, about 4,000 advertisers analyzed the usage behaviors of pages and advertisements clicked by members, and then created and operated advertising topics such as specific religions, homosexuality, and North Korean defectors.

In addition, Meta did not delete or block websites that were suspended or not managed, and even when hackers submitted forged IDs and requested to reset passwords on other people's accounts, it approved them without sufficient procedures, indicating that the personal information of 10 Korean users was leaked.

The Personal Information Protection Committee asked Meta to provide legal grounds and take safety measures when processing sensitive information, and ordered it to faithfully respond to users' requests to view personal information.