According to PANews, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, €91 million (approximately $102 million) following an investigation into password storage practices. The investigation began in April 2019 after Meta informed the DPC that it had inadvertently stored certain social media users' passwords in plain text within its internal systems, lacking encryption or protective measures.

This recent fine follows a significant penalty imposed by the European Commission last year, where Meta was fined €1.2 billion (approximately $1.3 billion) for transferring user data to the United States. The current fine serves as a supplementary measure to the previous year's penalty, reinforcing the European Union's stringent data protection regulations.