LONDON (AP) — Meta was punished Friday with a fine worth more than $100 million from the social media giant's European Union privacy regulator over a security lapse involving passwords for Facebook users.
The Irish Data Protection Commission said it slapped the U.S. tech company with the 91 million euro ($101.6 million) penalty following an investigation.
The watchdog started investigating in 2019 after it was notified by Meta that some passwords had been inadvertently stored internally in plain text, which means they weren't encrypted and it was possible for employees to search for them.
Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said it's “widely accepted” that user passwords should not be stored in plain text, "considering the risks of abuse.”
Meta said a security review found that a “subset” of Facebook users' passwords were “temporarily logged in a readable format.”
“We took immediate action to fix this error, and there is no evidence that these passwords were abused or accessed improperly,” the company said in a statement. "We proactively flagged this issue to our lead regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission, and have engaged constructively with them throughout this inquiry.”
It's the latest in a series of hefty fines for Meta and its social media platforms from the Dublin-based watchdog, which is the company's lead regulator under the 27-nation EU's stringent data privacy rulebook. They include a 405 million euro fine for Instagram over mishandling teen data, a 5.5 million euro penalty involving WhatsApp and a 1.2 billion euro fine for Meta over transatlantic data transfers.
Meta hit with $102 million privacy fine from European Union over 2019 password security lapse
FILE - In this May 16, 2012, file photo, the Facebook logo is displayed on a mobile device in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
Meta hit with $102 million privacy fine from European Union over 2019 password security lapse
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA began the countdown Monday for humanity’s first launch to the moon in 53 years.
The 32-story Space Launch System rocket is poised to blast off Wednesday evening with four astronauts. After a day in orbit around Earth, their Orion capsule will propel them to the moon and back. There are no stops — just a quick U-turn around the moon. The nearly 10-day flight will end with a splashdown in the Pacific.
“Our team has worked extremely hard to get us to this moment,” said launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. "Certainly all indications are right now we are in excellent, excellent shape.”
Managers said the rocket is doing well following the latest round of repairs. Forecasters said the weather should cooperate.
NASA’s Artemis II mission should have soared in February, but was grounded by hydrogen fuel leaks. The leaks were fixed, but then a helium pressurization line became clogged, forcing a return to the hangar late last month. The rocket returned to the pad 1 1/2 weeks ago, and its U.S.-Canadian crew arrived at the launch site on Friday.
Unlike Apollo, which sent only men to the moon from 1968 through 1972, Artemis’ debut crew includes a woman, person of color and a non-U.S. citizen.
Artemis II’s pilot Victor Glover said over the weekend that he wants young people to see them and think, “Girl power and that’s awesome, and that young brown boys and girls can look at me and go ‘Hey, he looks like me and he’s doing what???’”
At the same time, Glover, who is Black, looks forward to when ”one day we don’t have to talk about these firsts” and exploring the cosmos becomes an all-encompassing “human history.”
NASA has the first six days of April to launch Artemis II before standing down until the end of the month.
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NASA's Artermis II moon rocket sits on Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
NASA's Artermis II moon rocket sits on Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center at sunrise Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
Crew lunar observations lead Sara Schmidt demonstrates software at Johnson Space Center on Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Photographers setup remote cameras near NASA's Artermis II moon rocket on Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
In this photo provided by NASA, astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr. collects lunar samples at Station No. 1 during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity at the Descartes landing site, April 21, 1972. (John W. Young/NASA via AP)
