Italy's privacy regulator has imposed a fine of 805 million euros on Meta, accusing Facebook's Android app of accessing users' photo albums without explicit consent.

Italy’s data protection authority has fined Meta Platforms Ireland Limited 805 million euros. Investigations found that since 2023, Facebook’s Android app’s “Get suggestions from album while browsing Facebook” feature accessed Italian users’ photos, videos and related metadata without their specific, informed consent. The feature is enabled by default, with overly generic permission prompts; a single permission covering the entire app allows permanent access to device album content, and neither users nor regulators can verify its actual scope of use. Regulators ruled the act violates Article 122 of Italy’s Privacy Code, which implements the EU ePrivacy Directive, emphasizing that mobile phones are personal private spaces, and any access requires free, informed consent regardless of whether data is transmitted or actual harm is caused. Meta’s defense that jurisdiction rests with Irish regulators was rejected, as the ePrivacy Directive does not apply to the “one-stop” regulatory mechanism. The penalty was calculated taking into account factors including around 20 million affected Italian Android users, ongoing violations, a prior 2019 penalty record, and low cooperation during the investigation. The fine accounts for approximately 0.47% of the group’s global revenue. Meta is required to disable the feature by default within 60 days, separately obtain explicit user consent, clearly inform users of the feature’s purpose and opt-out method; if valid consent is not obtained within the period, the feature may not be enabled. It must submit remediation progress reports within 30 and 90 days respectively. No AI training use was involved (Meta denied such use), and the cloud album processing feature set to launch in 2026 will be assessed separately.