Facebook Data Leak

S Korea fines Meta $15 mn for illegally collecting info from Facebook users

South Korea's privacy watchdog on Tuesday fined social media company Meta 21.6 billion won ($15 million) for illegally collecting sensitive personal information from Facebook users, including data about their political views and sexual orientation, and sharing it with thousands of advertisers. It was the latest in a series of penalties against Meta by South Korean authorities in recent years as they increase their scrutiny of how the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, handles private information. Following a four-year investigation, South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission concluded that Meta unlawfully collected sensitive information about around 980,000 Facebook users, including their religion, political views and whether they were in same-sex unions, from July 2018 to March 2022. It said the company shared the data with around 4,000 advertisers. South Korea's privacy law provides strict protection for information related to personal beliefs, politic

Over 95 GB of Indian immigration data stolen by China-linked hacking group

Files leaked on GitHub include data not only from India but from at least 80 overseas targets, including Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan

Amazon, Meta settle UK probe with pledges to refrain from unfair practices

Amazon and Meta settled separate UK antitrust investigations by agreeing to stop practices that give them an unfair advantage over merchants and customers using their platforms, the watchdog said Friday. The Competition and Markets Authority said it accepted the commitments from the US tech companies to close the investigations into their online marketplaces. The watchdog had been investigating whether Amazon was harming competition and hurting consumers by giving preference to merchants paying for extras like storage, packaging and delivery. It also looked into how Amazon chooses suppliers for the so-called buy box, which shows customers one-click buy now or add to basket options and the collection and use of data. The CMA said Amazon will no longer be able to use data from third-party sellers to give itself an edge. Sellers can negotiate their own delivery rates with independent delivery services and they'll get a fair shot at the buy box, it said. Amazon welcomed the deal, sayi

Meta's 'biggest single takedown' saw removal of 7,704 Facebook accounts

As per The New York Times, the posts were part of a Chinese influence campaign that stands out as the largest such operation to date, researchers at Meta said in a report on Tuesday

Facebook's $725 mn settlement: Users in the US can apply to claim money

A $725 million settlement was approved by a California judge between Meta and Facebook users

Irish regulator fines Meta $276 mn over data leak that hit Indian users too

The DPC commenced the inquiry "on foot of media reports into the discovery of a collated dataset of Facebook personal data that had been made available on the internet"

Meta Platforms seeks out secrets from 132 companies to win antitrust suit

Meta's request is "overbroad and abusive," Snap said in court filings

Meta's Facebook agrees to settle Cambridge Analytica Suit over user data

Facebook had argued it disclosed its practices in user agreements. It had also said that anyone sharing their information on a social network shouldn't count on holding onto their privacy

FB whistleblower forms non-profit for training lawyers against Big Tech

Haugen, a whistleblower who exposed Facebook and testified in front of lawmakers about illegal activities, is raising up to $5 million to kick off a nonprofit organisation that will train lawyers

Meta identifies six firms, including India's BellTroX, for spying on users

BellTroX allegedly operated fake accounts used in suspected efforts to hack people's phones or computers; the company targeted people in countries including Australia, Angola, Saudi Arabia and Iceland

Cyber agency CERT-In asks Indian FB users to enhance account privacy

Country's cyber security agency CERT-In has advised Facebook users to strengthen their account privacy settings after a recent global 'data scraping' incident in the social media platform was detected that affected about 61 lakh Indians. "As the Facebook platform evolves and grows, parts of your account could be public. Data could also be collected and shared in ways you don't know about," the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT-In said in a public advisory issued on Monday. It is the federal technology arm to combat cyber attacks and guard the Indian cyber space against phishing and hacking assaults and similar online attacks. "It has been reported that globally there has been a large scale leakage of Facebook profile information. The exposed information includes email addresses, profile ID, full name, job occupation, phone numbers and birth date. "According to Facebook, the scraped information does not include financial information, health information or passwords, ..

South Korean users team up to sue Facebook over leaked user data

Commission on protecting personal data says Facebook violated the country's laws by providing information of at least 3.3 million million users to third parties.

After Facebook, LinkedIn faces massive 500 mn users' data leak: Report

Microsoft-owned professional networking platform LinkedIn is now facing a massive data leak of 500 million users that is allegedly being sold online

Muslim civil rights group sues Facebook over hate speech: Details here

A civil rights group said CEO Mark Zuckerberg made false and deceptive" statements to Congress when he said the giant social network removes hate speech and other material that violates its rules

Data on 530 mn users reported in leak 'scraped' before Sep 2019: Facebook

Facebook said a recently reported data leak affecting potentially 530 mn users stemmed from misuse of feature in 2019, and that the company had plugged the hole after identifying problem at the time

Leaked Facebook data reveals chief Mark Zuckerberg uses Signal app

As Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg's phone number also emerged among the leaked data of 533 million Facebook users, a security expert has revealed that the Facebook CEO uses Signal.

Facebook admits leaked data on 533 million users back online for free

The leak includes personal information such as phone numbers, full names and locations.

Facebook to let researchers access election ad data from Feb 1

Facebook will let researchers access the targeting information for more than 1.3 million social issue, electoral and political ads through the Facebook Open Research and Transparency platform

South Korea fines Facebook $6.1 mn for sharing users' info without consent

South Korea's information watchdog PIPC said Facebook violated the country's personal information law by sharing personal information of users with other companies without their consent

Ex-Cambridge Analytica chief banned from running companies for 7 years

UK-based Cambridge Analytica was accused of playing a key role in the 2014 breach of 87 million Facebook users' personal data