Facebook to pay 300,000 won to 181 South Korean users for data breach

South Korean state watchdog Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) 's dispute mediation panel on Friday instructed Meta Platforms, the operator of Facebook, to pay 300,000 won or 256.70 dollars to 181 users as compensation for giving their personal information to third parties without consent. The panel is in charge of settling the dispute between the operator and Korean users of Facebook for violation of their privacy.

In November, the panel had concluded that the social media platform indeed passed the personal information, including users' Facebook friend list, of at least 3.3 million of its 18 million users to over 10,000 third-party app developers without individual content between May 2012 and June 2018. Facebook was then fined 6.7 billion won for the privacy violations.

Responding to this, a group of Facebook users came together and filed for a damage relief process with the PIPC in April. They sought financial compensation and the disclosure of what data was leaked and to whom.

PIPC proposed an arbitration deal and recommended that Meta pay 300,000 won in compensation to each of the 181 users while also giving them access to the information they demanded.