South Korea fines Meta $15 million for illegally collecting information on Facebook users

South Korea’s privacy watchdog has fined Meta 21.6 billion won for illegally collecting Facebook users’ sensitive personal information, including data about their political views and sexual orientation, and sharing it with thousands of advertisers for targeted advertisements. It was the latest in a series of penalties against Meta by South Korean authorities in recent years as they increase their scrutiny of how the company handles private information. South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission concluded that Meta unlawfully collected sensitive information of around 980,000 Facebook users, including their religion, political views and whether they were in same-sex unions, and shared the data with 4,000 advertisers.