Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, will be fined $100,000 (approximately Rs. 82 lakh) each day for privacy violations until it takes corrective action, Norway’s data protection authorities announced on Monday, in a move that might have broader European ramifications. The fee will be charged every day from August 4 to November 3 unless Meta takes action, according to Datatilsynet. It said that Meta cannot gather user data in Norway, such as users’ actual whereabouts, and use it to target advertising at them, and a business model typical in Big Tech.
“It is so clear that this is illegal that we must intervene right away.” “We can no longer wait,” Tobias Judin, head of Datatilsynet’s foreign branch, told Reuters. Meta stated that it will investigate Datatilsynet’s judgement and that there would be no immediate impact on its services.
Datatilsynet has forwarded its action to the European Data Protection Board, which, if agreed upon, may make the punishment permanent and broaden the decision’s geographical impact across Europe. “It would put additional pressure on Meta,” Judin explained. The ruling by Datatilsynet comes only days after the European Union’s top court declared that Meta could not gather user data for behavioural advertising.
The data regulator in Ireland (DPC), where Meta has its European headquarters, declared in December that the company had to discontinue the practice. “We continue to engage constructively with the Irish DPC, our lead regulator in the EU, regarding our compliance with its decision,” Meta stated. “The debate over legal bases has raged on for a while, while companies continue to face a lack of regulatory certainty in this area.” Norway is not a member of the European Union, although it does participate in the European Union’s single market.
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