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Italy’s data protection authority fined Meta Platforms €805 million (about $887.7 million), finding that a Facebook feature on Android devices accessed users’ photos and videos without separate, informed consent. The Garante said the tool was enabled by default and covered by a single broad permission prompt, giving the app permanent access to device galleries. Meta has 60 days to disable the feature by default and obtain explicit consent, and must report progress at 30 and 90 days. The regulator rejected Meta’s argument that Ireland should have jurisdiction, citing the ePrivacy Directive’s exclusion from the one-stop-shop system. The fine equals roughly 0.47% of Meta’s global revenue.
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Italy’s data protection authority has ordered Meta Platforms Inc (META) to pay €805 million (approximately $887.7 million) after concluding that a Facebook feature on Android devices reached into users’ photo and video libraries without proper authorization.
The regulator, known as the Garante, said the tool — which surfaced images and clips from a phone’s gallery as suggested material to post — had been <a href="https://myappsplus.com/the-top-6-nintendo-switch-2-exclusives-of-2026/” title=”The top 6 Nintendo Switch 2 exclusives of 2026″>switched on by default. It found that a single, broadly worded permission prompt covered the entire app, giving Facebook what amounted to permanent read access to device storage. Neither users nor the watchdog could verify how far that access actually extended, according to the authority.
The investigation opened in 2025. Under the ruling, Meta has 60 days to turn the feature off by default and to secure separate, explicit consent before touching gallery content. If no valid consent is obtained within that window, the function cannot be reactivated. The company must also file progress reports at the 30- and 90-day marks.
The Garante anchored its decision in Article 122 of Italy’s privacy code, which implements the EU’s ePrivacy Directive. It argued that a smartphone belongs to an individual’s private sphere and that any access requires free and informed consent, regardless of whether data leaves the device or any harm is shown.
Meta had contended that jurisdiction belonged to Ireland’s data protection commission, the lead authority for the company under the EU’s one-stop-shop arrangement. The Garante rejected that argument, holding that the ePrivacy framework falls outside the one-stop-shop mechanism.
In setting the amount, the regulator cited roughly 20 million Italian Android users affected, the continuing nature of the violation, a prior penalty from 2019 and what it described as limited cooperation during the probe. The sum equals about 0.47% of Meta’s global revenue.
The authority said its review did not cover whether the material was used to train artificial intelligence models, a practice the company has denied. It reserved the right to examine separately a feature introduced in 2026 that processes gallery content through cloud-based systems.
Meta was not immediately available for comment.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Penalty | €805 million (approx. $887.7 million) |
| Share of global revenue | About 0.47% |
| Users affected | Roughly 20 million in Italy |
| Deadline to disable default access | 60 days |
| Progress reports due | 30 days and 90 days |
Note: Figures as stated by Italy’s data protection authority.
The penalty lands as European regulators continue to test how far the bloc’s privacy rules reach into the design of mobile software. A finding that a default setting alone can trigger liability puts pressure on app makers to separate consent for each function rather than bundling permissions at installation. For Meta, the financial hit is modest relative to revenue, but the compliance order carries broader weight: it sets a template for how gallery and media access must be structured across its Android products in the EU, and it keeps the company exposed to further scrutiny over cloud processing of user content.
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