Meta’s photo suggestions just became an €805 million problem. Italy’s data protection agency fined Meta Platforms Ireland Limited about $887 million after finding that Facebook accessed Android users’ photos, videos, and related metadata without specific consent or proper information. The penalty ranks among the largest an Italian authority has imposed on a tech company.
The case concerns Facebook’s “Camera roll sharing suggestions” feature, available since 2023. It recommends photos and videos from a user’s phone gallery as possible posts while the user browses the application — a handy feature, assuming people understood that granting permission opened the door in the first place.
According to the Italian Data Protection Authority, Facebook requested gallery access through a single authorization covering the entire app. That request followed a generic notice about enabling other functions, so users could not understand that they were also authorizing suggestions drawn from their photo libraries.
The authority said this approach gave Meta broad, ongoing access “without obtaining specific consent and without properly informing” users. It also argued that the feature should not be enabled by default and that Facebook must clearly explain that the permission allows access to a user’s media gallery for post suggestions.
Italy demands a separate permission request
Meta has 60 days to disable the feature by default and seek “separate and specific” consent from users. The company must explain what the feature does, identify its access to the photo gallery, and show users how to disable it.
The change also applies to people who already accepted the broader permission request. Meta must switch the feature off by default for them too, then obtain consent specifically for gallery suggestions rather than treating one blanket approval as permission for every function.
The Italian authority launched its investigation in July 2025 after receiving a complaint from the Bolzano Consumer Protection Centre. It said the infringement remains ongoing for people who have not updated the app and for those who already gave consent through the existing system.
The agency cited “the high number of people affected” — around 20 million Android users in Italy — along with the duration of the infringement and “Meta’s lack of cooperation during the investigation” when setting the fine. The penalty equals 0.47 percent of the company’s global revenue; the authority also described it as roughly 0.4 per cent of the group’s annual turnover, which reached $201 billion in 2025, alongside a net profit of $60.5 billion.
Meta plans to appeal the decision
Meta said it plans to appeal. A company spokesperson said Meta “strongly disagree[s]” with the regulators’ assessment and with “the disproportionate level of the fine.” The decision therefore enters the familiar next phase of major technology enforcement: a regulator sets a number, the company objects, and lawyers begin measuring the distance between them.
The investigation did not cover whether Meta used the photos or videos to train artificial intelligence models. The authority said Meta denied that practice and reserved the right to assess it separately.
The decision adds to a long list of major penalties involving technology companies in Italy and elsewhere. In 2021, Amazon received a more than 1.1-billion-euro fine for breaching competition law, while in late October authorities in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in penalties.
Those comparisons do not erase the specific issue in this case. Italy’s regulator is saying that access to a personal photo gallery requires clear, feature-specific permission — not a broad app authorization that quietly covers more than users can reasonably see.
For Meta, the practical order is straightforward: explain the feature, turn it off by default, and ask again. For users, the ruling offers a less glamorous but more useful standard for consent — permission should identify what an app can access before the access begins, not after a regulator explains it.
Based on
- Italy orders Meta to pay $887M for not obtaining specific consent over user photos — engadget.com
- Italy fines Meta $887m for accessing Android users’ photos and videos | Meta | The Guardian — theguardian.com
- Italy slaps Meta with $887 million fine. | The Verge — theverge.com
- Italy fines Meta $880 mn over photo privacy: authority | AFP.com — afp.com
- Italy fines Meta $887 million over Android users’ data access — usatoday.com
