The parent company of Facebook and WhatsApp, Meta, has been fined $220 million by the Nigerian government for allegedly breaking local consumer, data protection, and privacy laws.
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) released the update in a statement on Friday.
Data-sharing on social media sites breached local consumer, data protection, and privacy laws, according to the consumer competition watchdog’s findings.
Dr Adamu Abdullahi, the acting Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of the FCCPC, said in the statement that the commission’s inquiry conducted between May 2021 and December 2023 revealed that Meta had obtained control of Nigerian customers’ data on its platforms without their consent.
He claimed that the social media giant unfairly and unequally treated Nigerians in contrast to other nations with comparable legal systems, abusing their dominant position in the market.
“Abuse of dominant market position by forcing unscrupulous, exploitative, and non-compliant privacy policies which appropriated consumer personal information without the option or opportunity to self-determine or otherwise withhold or provide consent to the gathering, use, and/or sharing of such personal data,” part of the statement reads.
In its response, Meta declared that it would be appealing the $220 million punishment levied by the FCCPC for breaking Nigerian data privacy regulations.
It stated, “We disagree with the decision today as well as the fine and Meta will be appealing the decision.”
“In 2021, we went to users globally to explain how talking to businesses among other things would work and while there was a lot of confusion then, it has actually proven quite popular.”
According to the FCCPC, the fine is in line with the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection (Administrative Penalties) Regulations 2020 (APR) and the FCCPA 2018.
The commission is dedicated to safeguarding Nigerians’ privacy in line with the Constitution and all applicable data protection laws and regulations, as well as making sure that their rights as consumers are upheld.
We earlier reported that After Brazil’s data protection authorities imposed a preliminary prohibition in opposition to Meta’s new privacy policy, Meta decided to halt the usage of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in that country.
