Ireland fined Facebook’s WhatsApp a record 225 million euro ($266 million) on Thursday for privacy breaches after the EU privacy watchdog pressured the country to take a tougher line with a bigger penalty.
WhatsApp said the fine was “entirely disproportionate” and that it would appeal.
Still, the Irish fine is significantly less than the record $886.6 million euro fine meted out to Amazon by the Luxembourg privacy agency in July.
Ireland’s Data Privacy Commissioner (DPC), which is the lead data privacy regulator for Facebook within the European Union, said the issues related to whether WhatsApp conformed in 2018 with EU data rules about transparency.
A WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement that the issues in question related to policies in place in 2018.
EU privacy watchdog the European Data Protection Board said it had given several pointers to the Irish agency in July in order to address criticism from its peers for taking too long to decide in cases involving tech giants and for not fining them enough for any breaches.
It said a WhatsApp fine should take into account Facebook’s turnover and that the company should be given three months instead of six months to comply.
Data regulators from eight other European countries triggered a dispute resolution mechanism after Ireland shared its provisional decision in relation to the WhatsApp inquiry, which started in December 2018.
In July, a meeting of the European Data Protection Board issued a “clear instruction that required the DPC to reassess and increase its proposed fine on the basis of a number of factors contained”, the Irish regulator said.
“Following this reassessment the DPC has imposed a fine of 225 million euros on WhatsApp,” it said.
The Irish regulator also reprimanded and ordered WhatsApp to bring its processing into compliance by taking “a range of specified remedial actions”.
The Irish regulator had 14 major inquiries into Facebook and its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram open as of the end of last year.
