The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has submitted a draft decision in a large-scale inquiry into social-media giant Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to other EU data watchdogs.

The probe started in April 2021, after media reports highlighted that a set of data linked to around 533 million Facebooks users had been made available on the internet.

It examined whether Meta had complied with its obligations under articles 25(1) and 25(2) of the EU’s GDPR privacy regulations.

Objections

Graham Doyle (deputy commissioner) said that the watchdog’s inquiry looked at a number of features provided by Meta, and whether the company had complied with its obligations regarding data protection by design and by default.

Under article 60 of the GDPR, the DPC sends its draft decisions to its EU counterparts, who then have one month to raise any “relevant and reasoned objections” that they may have.

Meta last week lodged an appeal against a €405 million fine imposed by the DPC over the processing of personal data relating to child users of the Instagram social-networking service.