Italy fines Meta 805 million euros for reaching into Android users' photo galleries

Italy's data protection authority said on Saturday it has fined Meta 805 million euros, about $887 million, for allegedly accessing Android users' photographs and videos without their consent and without telling them, CNBC reported. Reuters also carried the story.

What the regulator says Meta did

According to the authority's statement as relayed by CNBC, the issue is a feature in the Facebook app that suggested content from a user's personal gallery for them to post. That gave Meta access to the photos and videos on the phone, the authority said, without consent or notice to the user.

Meta has 60 days to disable the feature by default and to seek users' consent separately. The investigation began in 2025.

What the ruling does not say

Two limits are worth stating plainly. The authority said its investigation did not cover whether the content was used to train artificial intelligence models, a practice Meta denied. And it reserved the right to assess separately a new feature launched in 2026 that lets gallery content be processed in the cloud. So this decision is about consent and notice for an older feature, and a second review could follow.

We have not seen Meta's response or the full decision, and neither is quoted in the report we read. Meta can be expected to have appeal options, but we have no confirmation of its plans.

The size of the fine

The authority put the fine at about 0.47% of Meta's global revenue. By our own arithmetic, 805 million euros divided by 0.0047 implies a revenue base of roughly 171 billion euros, which is the authority's framing, not a figure we have checked against Meta's filings. For the company, the money is small against its scale. The 60-day order to change a default is the part that touches the product.

Meta closed Friday at $641.69, according to Yahoo Finance data in our chart, 17.5% below its Sept. 24 peak. Markets are closed until futures reopen Sunday evening and Monday's stock reaction is unknown.

Who else should pay attention

The question the ruling raises is not limited to Facebook. Any business whose app offers to surface a customer's own photos, receipts or files, from a restaurant loyalty app to a contractor's quoting tool, is making the same consent and disclosure choices. The regulator's emphasis was on default settings and explicit consent. Owners who ship or commission apps with gallery features can ask their developer one question this week: is that access off until the user says yes?

Related: more stock news and the markets board.

Sources: CNBC, Nov. 14, 2026, reporting the Italian data protection authority's statement; Reuters, same story; price data via Yahoo Finance. We could not reach the authority's own page or a second full text this morning. This is market information, not investment advice.