{
  "id": 20005767,
  "title": "Facebook-Konzern: Italien verhängt 805 Millionen Euro Strafe gegen Meta",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/14/facebook-konzern-italien-verhangt-805-millionen-euro-strafe-gegen-meta",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-11-14T15:38:42.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Handelsblatt",
    "slug": "handelsblatt",
    "url": "https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/facebook-konzern-italien-verhaengt-805-millionen-euro-strafe-gegen-meta/100269912.html"
  },
  "original_language": "de",
  "account": "Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has been fined 805 million euros by Italian authorities for unauthorized access to photos and videos of smartphone users. The Italian data protection agency Garante alleges that Meta did not adequately inform Android app users about the use of their photo galleries and did not obtain effective consent. Around 20 million Android users in Italy are affected, representing about 0.47% of Meta's global revenue in 2024. The investigation began in July 2025 after a complaint from the consumer protection center in Bozen, focusing on a feature introduced in 2023 that suggested photos and videos from the smartphone gallery as potential posts. Accessing the gallery was enabled with a single, broad permission covering multiple functions, allowing the app to read the entire photo archive, including metadata, which is typically stored permanently. Despite challenging the Italian authority's jurisdiction and referring the case to the Irish data protection agency where Meta's European headquarters are located, Garante rejected the objection. Meta now has 60 days to obtain explicit user consent for accessing their photo galleries and to deactivate the function by default, even for users who had previously given broad permission.",
  "summary": "Eine Funktion, die Facebook-Nutzern Ideen für eigene Beiträge liefern sollte, wird für Meta zum Problem. Im Mittelpunkt steht der Zugriff auf private Fotos und Videos auf Millionen Smartphones.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}