The social network Instagram, a subsidiary of the Meta group, Facebook's parent company, received a record fine of 405 million euros. The network is accused of breaches in processing data from minors, according to the Irish regulator, which acts on behalf of the European Union.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), equivalent to the French CNIL, oversees Facebook on behalf of the EU, as the latter has its regional headquarters in Ireland. The regulator had opened an investigation at the end of 2020 to determine whether the application had put in place the necessary safeguards to protect user data, especially if they are minors, when you must be at least 13 years old to open an account on Instagram.

DPC was particularly concerned that users under the age of 18 could too easily switch to a business account. This type of account requires users to make their contact details public, which means that they are visible to everyone on the social network. The regulator also blamed Instagram for the content of the accounts of minors being open by default at certain times to all users and not restricted to only approved followers.