Turkey fines FB over data breach of over 280,000 users

 Turkey on Thursday fined social media giant Facebook for over $281,000 for a data breach that exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of users in the country.

Facebook exposed the name, gender, birthday, relationship status, educational background, religion, hometown, personal data and location information of 280,959 users, said the Personal Data Protection Authority -- Turkey's watchdog agency for data privacy.

Facebook was fined $201,865 dollars for the breach and nearly $79,000 for failing to provide notice of the breach, according to Anadolu news agency.

In May, the Personal Data Protection Authority fined Facebook $289,566 over a previous data breach.

In June, the US fined Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations, the largest ever fine levied by the Federal Trade Commission on a tech company.

But critics say that the fine amounted to a working expense for the tech giant, which in 2018 drew in nearly $56 billion in revenue.IANS