Italy's data protection authority fined Meta €805 million ($887 million) on Saturday for accessing photos and videos of 20 million Android users without their specific consent.
The Garante, Italy's privacy watchdog, said the Facebook app for Android accessed photographs, videos and metadata on users' phones. The access came through a "camera roll suggestions" feature available since 2023. The feature suggested content from phone galleries for posts while users browsed. The fine equals about 0.47 percent of Meta's global turnover.
The regulator found Facebook requested gallery access with a single generic permission for the entire app. The request was preceded by a vague notice about enabling other features. Users could not tell they were also authorizing gallery suggestions. The app could read the entire photo archive including metadata, usually permanently.
Meta had argued the case belonged to Ireland's data protection authority, where the company has its European headquarters. The Garante rejected this, saying it acted under the EU's ePrivacy rules, which have no one-stop shop mechanism. Article 122 of Italy's privacy code treats a smartphone as part of a person's private sphere.
Within 60 days, Meta must disable the feature by default. It must also seek separate, specific consent, even from users who already granted general access. The company must clearly explain that the feature involves access to the photo gallery and how to disable it.
Meta said it would appeal the decision. A company spokesperson said "we strongly disagree" with the regulators' assessment "and the disproportionate level of the fine". The investigation began in July 2025 after a complaint from a consumer protection center in Bolzano.
The probe did not examine whether gallery content was used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, which Meta denies. The Garante reserved the right to separately examine a 2026 cloud processing feature. The fine is the largest ever imposed by the Italian regulator.
The authority took into account a 2019 decision against Meta and what it called the company's "lack of cooperation" during the investigation. Changes Meta made after the complaint counted in its favor but were called late and limited to users who update the app. The infringement remains ongoing for those who have not updated the app.
