Category: Instagram

265 million euro fine for Meta

29. November 2022

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) imposed an administrative fine of 265 million euros on Facebook-mother Meta as a result of the unlawful publication of personal data.

Investigation proceedings

Following the availability online of personal data of up to 533 million Facebook and Instagram users from over 100 countries in April 2021, the DPC had launched investigations. As part of the investigation process, it cooperated with the other European data protection authorities and examined the Facebook Search, Facebook Messenger Contact Importer and Instagram Contact Importer tools. With the help of these tools, contacts stored in the smartphone can be imported into the Instagram or Facebook app in order to find friends or acquaintances.

Lack of technical and organisational measures to protect data

As part of its investigation, the DPC dealt with the so-called technical and organisational measures according to Article 25 GDPR. According to data protection law, data controllers must use such measures to ensure that the rights of data subjects are extensively protected. These include, for example, pseudonymisation and encryption of personal data, but also physical protection measures or the existence of reliable backups.

The DPC did not consider Meta’s technical and organisational measures to be sufficient. Therefore, in addition to the aforementioned fine of 265 million euros, it issued a reprimand as well as an order to bring the processing operations into compliance with data protection law within a certain period of time and to implement a number of specific remedial measures to this end.

Not the first fine for Meta

Meta is by now familiar with fines from European data protection authorities. In total, the company has already been fined almost one billion euros, most recently in September in the amount of 405 million euros for serious data protection violations involving underage Instagram users. The reason for the considerable amount of the individual sanctions is Article 83 GDPR, according to which fines can amount to up to four percent of a company’s total worldwide annual turnover. Meta has appealed against each of the previous decisions, so it can also be assumed in this case that Meta will not accept the fine without a judicial review, either.

FaceApp reacts to privacy concerns

22. July 2019

The picture editing app FaceApp, which became increasingly popular on social media, was confronted with various concerns about their privacy.

Created in Russia by a four-person start-up company, the app applies a newly developed technology that uses neural networks to modify a face in any photo while remaining photorealistic. In this process, no filters are placed on the photo, but the image itself is modified with the help of deep learning technology.

However, the app is accused of not explaining that the images are uploaded to a cloud for editing. In addition, the app is accused of uploading not only the image selected by the user, but also the entire camera roll in the background. The latter in particular raises high security concerns due to the large number of screenshots that people nowadays take of sensitive information such as access data or bank details.

While there is no evidence for the latter accusation and FaceApp emphasizes in its statement that no image other than the one chosen by the user is uploaded, they confirm the upload into a cloud.

The upload to the cloud justifies FaceApp with reasons of performance and traffic. With this, the app developers want to ensure that the user does not upload the photo repeatedly during each editing process.

Finally, FaceApp declares that no user data will be sold or passed on to third parties. Also, in 99 % of cases, they are unable to identify a person because the app can be and actually is used without registration by a large number of users.

The German Bundeskartellamt prohibits Facebook to combine their user data from different sources

7. February 2019

The Bundeskartellamt announced in a press release on their website on Febraury 7, 2019 that it imposes far-reaching restrictions on Facebook.

Up to now Facebook’s terms and conditions stated that users have only been able to use the social network under the precondition that Facebook can collect user data also outside of the Facebook website in the internet or on smartphone apps and assign these data to the user’s Facebook account. Therefore, all data collected on the Facebook website, by Facebook-owned services which includes Instagram and WhatsApp as well as on third party websites can be combined and assigned to the account of a Facebook user.

The authority’s decision affects said processing of user data in Germany and covers different sources of data.
Firstly, all social networks/services can continue to collect data under the existing laws. But the collected data can only be transferred to Facebook itself if consent is given by the data subject (the user). If such a consent is not given, the data cannot be assigned to an existing Facebook account. Secondly, the same applies to collecting data from third party websites.
Consequently, without the above mentioned consent Facebook will face far-reaching restrictions concerning collecting and combining data.

The Bundeskartellamt states as reason for this decision that in December 2018 Facebook had 1.52 billion daily active users and 2.32 billion monthly active users and therefore also occupies a dominant position in the German market for social networks. It further claims that the market share of Facebook concerning social networks in Germany is more than 95 % (daily active users) and more than 80 % (monthly active users). Therefore, the conclusion is drawn that the group with its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram occupy a key position in the market which indicates a monopolisation process. Competitors like Google+, Snapchat, YouTube or Twitter or professional networks like LinkedIn or Xing provide only components of the services offered by the Facebook Group.

The authority’s decision is not yet final. Facebook has one month to appeal the decision to the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. The company has already announced that it will appeal against the decision.

Category: EU · General · German Law · Instagram · Personal Data
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Facebook sues BlackBerry for patent infringement, claiming it stole Voice-Messaging Tech

5. September 2018

On Tuesday, September 5th, Facebook Inc. filed a lawsuit against BlackBerry Ltd., accusing the ladder of patent infringement, the news agency Bloomberg reports.

The complaint of the social media company contains the allegations that BlackBerry has been stealing its voice messaging technology. Furthermore, the accusation includes technology that improves how a mobile device delivers graphics, video and audio and another that centralizes tracking and analysis of GPS data.

According to Facebook a total of six patents are targeted, for which the company intends to claim unspecified damages in San Francisco federal court.

The lawsuit, in turn, follows BlackBerrys’ lawsuit in march, accusing the company of infringement on its mobile messaging tech for its own messenger, as well as its Instagram photo sharing app and WhatsApp messaging service.

Category: General · Instagram · USA
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Instagram developes additional privacy features

9. December 2016

On Tuesday, Instagram announced the launching of some features for its users to help maintain privacy.

Some time ago, Instagram already included a feature to filter comments by introducing keywords. Now, it has also introduced the feature to turn off comments in any post if the user wishes to do so. Furthermore, a new feature to like posts will be added in order to maintain a positive environment.

Another important feature consists of the possibility to remove followers from private accounts. At the time, users that have a private account are able to choose the followers they want to accept. However, once a follower was accepted there was no way to remove it. This feature will make possible to remove followers and the removed followers will not be notified about it.

Finally, a reporting tool will be available for all users. This tool can be used in cases where a user suspects that another user will injure him/herself based on the published posts. This reporting tool can be used anonymously and aims at offering support and help and connect the reported persons with specialized organizations.

Instagram’s CEO announced ongoing changes in order to achieve a safe use of Instagram.

Category: General · Instagram
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