WhatsApp has been fined €225 million by Ireland’s data watchdog for breaching privacy regulations.
It is the largest fine ever from the Irish Data Protection Commission, and the second-highest under EU GDPR rules.
Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, has its EU headquarters is in Ireland, and the Irish regulator is the lead authority for the tech giant in Europe.
WhatsApp said it disagrees with the decision, and the severity of the fine, and plans to appeal.
The fine relates to an investigation which began in 2018, about whether WhatsApp had been transparent enough about how it handles information.
The issues involved were highly technical, including whether WhatsApp supplied enough information to users about how their data was processed and if its privacy policies were clear enough.
