Meta takes Ireland's data watchdog to court over fine for breach of 29 million Facebook accounts

Last month, the Irish Examiner reported only €19.9m of the €3.26bn in fines levied by the Data Protection Commission over the previous five years has been collected

It comes after Meta hit the headlines earlier this week after announcing a significant change to its content moderation policies in the US. File photo: AP/Tony Avelar

Meta has launched High Court proceedings against Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), after it was hit with hefty fines totalling €251m last month by the watchdog.

Papers were filed in the High Court on Wednesday understood to be against the decision from the DPC, which arose from a data breach in 2018 that exposed millions of users’ accounts. The breach happened when hackers gained access to user accounts by exploiting bugs in the platform’s code that allowed them to steal digital keys, known as access tokens.