Meta: EU terms of service updated after heavy fine

Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will make a major change to its terms of use on April 5 to continue to collect and process the personal data of its European users, after being heavily sanctioned in January.

The American group, accused by the privacy association of violating the European Data Regulation (GDPR) to broadcast targeted advertisements, had three months to comply with the legislation in force since 2018. The Irish Commission for Data Protection Authority (DPC), which was acting on behalf of the EU, fined it nearly 400 million euros in January for breaches of its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp apps.

According to an updated blog post on Thursday, Meta will amend its terms of use and privacy policy for the European Union by changing the "

" it uses to justify its use of personal data.

The group will now rely on "

", a legal concept used by companies when the processing of personal data they implement does not significantly affect the rights and interests of the persons concerned.

Currently, the group relies on a "

" made with the user when registering with the social network.

In a press release, the noyb association denounced this change which allows Meta to avoid collecting the explicit consent of the user.

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“An illegal practice is replaced by a new illegal practice”

“

,” writes the association, which plans to file a series of new complaints.

The founder of noyb, the Austrian Max Schrems, however, concedes a “

” who will have a form allowing them to oppose the use by Meta of certain data concerning them.

Legitimate interest is one of the six legal bases provided by the GDPR to justify the processing of personal data.

It is used in particular to guarantee network security, fraud prevention or commercial prospecting with a company's customers.

In the summer of 2022, TikTok, owned by the Chinese group ByteDance, had suspended until further notice an update in Europe which planned to use this same legal basis to broadcast advertising, after a warning from the Italian authority. data protection which had concluded that the change was incompatible with the GDPR.