Italy Fines Meta $887 Million Over Android Users' Data Access

Italy's data protection agency said Saturday it had fined Meta Platforms 805 million euros ($887 million) for allegedly accessing Android users' photographs and videos without obtaining their consent or informing them.

The authority said Meta gained access through a Facebook app feature that suggested content from users' personal galleries for them to post. Meta has 60 days to disable the feature by default and seek users' consent separately, it added. Meta was not immediately available for comment.

The investigation began in 2025 and did not cover the possible use of the content to train artificial intelligence models, a practice Meta denied, the authority said. It added that it reserved the right to assess separately a new feature, launched in 2026, that allows content from users' galleries to be processed in the cloud.

The fine is equivalent to about 0.47% of the group's global revenue, the authority said, a sum that underscores how regulators are willing to use percentage-of-revenue framing when penalising large platforms over data practices.

For Meta, the ruling adds to a growing list of European privacy cases tied to how the company handles user data across its apps. The 60-day deadline to disable the gallery-suggestion feature by default means product teams will need to ship a change that alters how the Facebook app surfaces personal photos, potentially affecting engagement metrics in European markets.

What remains unclear is whether Meta will appeal the fine or comply by the deadline, and how the separate assessment of the 2026 cloud-processing feature will proceed. The authority's reservation of that review leaves a second regulatory question open beyond the immediate penalty.

Meta (META) shares were up 2.9% in delayed trading at $641.69.