Meta was fined $101.5 million and must release a written apology for keeping 600 million passwords stored in plaintext.
In a day and age when online security is more important than ever, Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (MPIL).was found to have stored over 600 million passwords belonging to Instagram and Facebook users in plaintext. Some of these passwords have been around in this form for more than 10 years. The sunshine first fell on this subject matter in 2019 when Facebook, now known as Meta, admitted to the Data Protection Commission (DPC) that hundreds of millions of passwords were stored inadvertently unencrypted in plaintext.
After a five-year investigation by the DPC, Meta’s operations in Ireland were fined $101.5 million. Meta was found to have violated Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by not storing the passwords of many Instagram and Facebook users in a more secure manner.
