Meta pushes back against US FTC’s 2022 privacy settlement amendment

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission attempted to renegotiate a 2020 privacy settlement, but Meta Platforms rejected the request, stating that it had voluntarily reported to the government two technical issues with its Messenger Kids programme.

In a filing on Thursday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, stated that it had revealed the bugs in July 2019 and that it had invested $5.5 billion in its privacy programme and related privacy measures.

A request for comment from Reuters was not immediately answered by the FTC. A 2020 Facebook privacy settlement that forbids making money off of the data of children and increases restrictions on face recognition technology is under scrutiny. As stated by the FTC, the settlement should be more stringent.

The organisation has charged Meta with deceiving parents about child protection measures.

Notwithstanding Meta’s protests that it had already paid a $5 billion fine and consented to a number of protections, a US appeals court said in March that Meta cannot, for the time being, block the FTC from reviving an investigation into the privacy violations of its Facebook arm.

In November, Meta, which has refuted claims that it misled parents about privacy dangers, filed a lawsuit against the FTC, challenging the agency’s constitutional jurisdiction to function as both an investigative and an adjudicatory body.