Italy fines Meta 805 million euros over Android gallery photo access

Italy's data protection authority fined Meta 805 million euros, about $887 million, on Saturday. The regulator said Facebook accessed photos and videos from Android users' galleries without specific consent or adequate disclosure. The feature, called "Get suggestions from gallery when browsing Facebook," was enabled by default and requested gallery access through a single permission covering several functions. The regulator said the feature violated a European privacy directive incorporated into Italian law. It also said Meta's lack of cooperation with the investigation factored into the penalty. The fine is about 0.47% of the group's global turnover. The fine was imposed on Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, which challenged Italy's jurisdiction. Meta has 60 days to disable the feature by default and seek separate consent. A Meta spokesperson said the company will appeal and called the fine "disproportionate." The company said users must grant device permission before the feature works and can change it at any time. The regulator said its investigation did not cover possible use of the content to train AI models, which Meta denied, and that it reserved the right to review a 2026 cloud-processing feature separately.