Cybersecurity
Facebook Faces EU Privacy Probe Under New Beefed Up Data Law
- Any fines under new GDPR could reach 4% of company’s sales
- Irish watchdog will check measures taken to ward off breaches
This article is for subscribers only.
Facebook Inc. has become the first big test case for the European Union’s beefed up privacy rules as Ireland’s data watchdog opened a probe into a security breach announced last week that affected as many as 50 million accounts.
Ireland’s data protection authority on Wednesday said it has started investigating whether Facebook had “appropriate technical and organizational measures” in place to protect its users’ personal data. While not the first European probe into Facebook, it’s the first under the EU’s new data rules, which could lead to fines of as much as 4 percent of a company’s annual sales.