Australia court fines Facebook owner Meta $14 mn for undisclosed data collection

An Australian court ordered Facebook owner Meta Platforms to pay fines totalling A$20 million ($14 million) for collecting user data through a smartphone application purporting to protect privacy without disclosing its actions.

Australia’s Federal Court also ordered Meta, through its subsidiaries Facebook Israel and the now-discontinued app, Onavo, to pay A$400,000 in legal costs to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which brought the civil lawsuit.

From early 2016 to late 2017, the company which was then called Facebook advertised Onavo as a way for people to keep their personal information safe but collected their location, time and frequency using other smartphone apps, and websites they visited for its own commercial purposes, the judge Wendy Abraham said in a written judgment on Wednesday.