€1.2m fine for Facebook in Spain for breaking privacy laws

Facebook is a popular social network, which comes with many features and options. However, this company is facing more and more fines from authorities from different countries.

According to the latest reports, Facebook has been fined for €1.2m in Spain. This has happened after the country’s data watchdog has found that the company broke privacy laws.

According to the Spanish authorities, the social network company has breached laws that have been made to protect citizens’ information and privacy on three occasions. It seems that Facebook has failed to explain to the users on how their personal information (such as: sex, religious beliefs, ideology, personal interests and browsing habits) would be used for advertising.

At the same time, reports are suggesting that Facebook had illegally tracked visitors to its web pages, who have not signed up to the social network using cookies. To make things even worse, Facebook has kept stored the details of deleted accounts for more than 17 months.

It seems that most Facebook users are not aware of how the company is collecting and storing and using their data. Data watchdogs across Europe are now investigating Facebook, which has already faced challenges in Belgium, France, Netherlands and Germany, which fined the company for €150,000 earlier this year.

However, Facebook won an appeal against a similar data protection issued in Belgium back in 2016, which ordered the company to stop tracking users’ online activity or face a €250,000 daily penalty.

That being said, we think that Facebook will appeal in order to have its $1.2m fine removed. Hopefully, Facebook will try to change the way it is tracking its users or else it will receive more and more fines.

Do you own a Facebook account? Do you know how Facebook is gathering and storing your data?