Italy Hits Meta With $887 Million Fine Over Android Photo Access

Italy's data protection agency has fined Meta €805 million ($887 million) for accessing Android users' photos and videos without their specific consent. The penalty, announced Saturday, ranks among the largest ever imposed on a technology company by an Italian authority.

The regulator found that Meta, Facebook's parent company, accessed photographs, videos and related metadata belonging to Italian users "without obtaining specific consent and without properly informing them" through the Facebook application for Android devices.

Meta said it will appeal. "We strongly disagree" with the assessment by the regulators "and the disproportionate level of the fine," a company spokesperson said.

The company has recent practice fighting record penalties. In late October, authorities in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for misleading the state's residents for more than a decade about the use of their data. Meta slammed that decision as a "tax" on freedom of expression. It remains the largest fine ever levied against the company.

How did Facebook obtain access to users' galleries?

The Italian penalty centers on Facebook's gallery suggestions feature, available since 2023. The feature suggests photos and videos from a user's phone gallery as ideas for posts while they browse the app.

According to the regulator, Facebook requested gallery access through a single authorization valid for the entire application. That authorization was preceded by a generic notice asking users to enable other features. Users could not understand, the authority said, that they were simultaneously authorizing suggestions drawn from their own photo galleries.

The regulator has now ordered Meta to change course. The company must seek consent through a separate, specific request for the feature concerned. It must also clearly signpost what the feature is used for — namely that it involves access to a user's photo gallery — and explain how to disable it.

Why is the fine so large?

Two factors drove the size of the penalty. The authority cited "the high number of people affected" — roughly 20 million Android users in Italy, out of a national population of about 59 million. It also cited the duration of the infringement, "which is still ongoing for those who have not updated the app and for those who have already given their consent to the system."

The authority added another aggravating factor: "Meta's lack of cooperation during the investigation."

In context, the fine equals roughly 0.4% of Meta's annual turnover. The group's revenue hit $201 billion in 2025, generating a net profit of $60.5 billion. At that profit level, Meta earns back the full fine amount in under six days.

How does this compare with previous European tech penalties?

The Meta fine approaches, but does not exceed, Italy's record sanction against a technology company. In 2021, Amazon received a fine of more than €1.1 billion for breaching competition law. That sum was subsequently reduced to €752 million on appeal — a precedent Meta will likely study as it contests Saturday's decision.

Amazon's successful appeal cut its penalty by nearly one-third. Meta's challenge could follow a similar path through Italy's administrative courts, a process that historically takes years.

The order to restructure the gallery consent flow may bite faster than the fine itself. Any redesign would apply to the suggestion feature used by millions of Italian Android users, and similar regulatory scrutiny could spread to other European jurisdictions watching the outcome.