400 million euro fine for Instagram

The European Union has imposed a huge fine of 405 million euros on Instagram, which processes children's data in violation of the rules in the guidelines.

Popular social media platform Instagram is facing one of the biggest fines in its history. Privacy regulators in the European Union have fined Instagram 405 million euros as a result of a long-running investigation into how the app uses children's data.

The platform, which is owned by Meta, has been announced to violate the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). "We took our final decision last Friday and that includes a 405 million euro fine," Graham Doyle, of the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) responsible for the investigation, told TechCrunch. Full details of the decision will be published next week," he said.

Instagram Violated GDPR Regulation

Instagram has been hit with the biggest GDPR penalty to date. WhatsApp, another popular app under the Meta umbrella, was fined $267 million for a GDPR violation last September. The reason behind the penalty for Instagram is expected to be announced in the coming days. The investigation was opened by the DPC only a year ago. Neither Meta nor Instagram has commented on the decision yet.

In effect since 2018, GDPR is a regulation in European Union law on data protection and privacy for individuals located throughout the European Union and the European Economic Area. According to the regulation, no personal data can be processed unless it is done as specified in the regulation or without the explicit consent of the personal data owner. The person concerned has the right to revoke this consent at any time.