Federal Court fined Meta $20 million for mining Aussies' data with its VPN

Facebook Israel and Onavo Protect VPN have been ordered by the Federal Court to pay $10 million each for failing to disclose to Australian users that their personal activity data was being collected through a free VPN service.

The two Meta subsidiaries, Onavo and Onavo Mobile, admitted in court that they did not inform users that their data was being collected for business intelligence purposes and to support Meta's market research activities.

Despite advertising the VPN as a way to protect personal information and keep data safe, it was actually used to collect a wide range of data about users' mobile device usage.

In addition to the monetary penalties, both companies are also required to pay $400,000 towards the legal costs of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

- CyberBeat