Turkey Imposes Fine on Meta for Breach of Child Privacy
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Ankara, Dec 11 (NationPress) Turkey's data protection body, the Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK), has levied a fine of 11.5 million Turkish liras (around 330,000 US dollars) against Meta, the parent organization of Instagram, due to breaches concerning the privacy of young users.
The violation arose when Instagram permitted users below the age of 18 to convert their private accounts into business accounts, thus making their profiles public and exposing personal information, as stated by the authority on Wednesday.
KVKK detailed that this functionality put minors at risk online by disclosing sensitive data such as email addresses and phone numbers through the platform's HTML source code, rendering them vulnerable to potential data exploitation.
The regulatory body concluded that Meta did not deploy sufficient technical measures to secure minors' data, thereby heightening their risk to online threats, as reported by Xinhua news agency.
This prompted an ex officio investigation by the Turkish authority, which ultimately led to the imposition of the fine.
In its announcement, KVKK stressed the urgent need for enhanced protocols to safeguard children's privacy and data security in the digital environment.
