South Korea now fines Meta for an illegal collection of data given it to advertisers without a legal basis, Seoul’s data protection agency said.

South Korea has mandated that Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, pay a fine of 21.62 billion won (approximately $15.67 million) for unlawfully collecting sensitive user data and sharing it with advertisers, according to the country’s data protection agency.

The Personal Information Protection Commission revealed that Meta gathered data from around 980,000 South Korean Facebook users, including details about their religion, political beliefs, and sexual orientation, without obtaining users’ consent.

This information was subsequently utilized by approximately 4,000 advertisers, per Reuters.

A representative from Meta Korea declined to provide any comments on the matter.

The commission’s statement indicated that Meta analyzed user behavior, such as the pages users liked and the ads they interacted with, to create and manage advertising themes based on sensitive information.

Users were categorized in various ways, such as identifying as North Korean defectors, certain religious affiliations, or as transgender or gay.

Additionally, the agency noted that Meta had unjustly rejected user requests to access their personal information and failed to secure data for about 10 South Koreans, which was leaked by hackers.

Meta stock (NASDAQ:META) is currently up more than 65% this year-to-date at the time of this publication.

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