The fine is among the largest an Italian authority has imposed on a tech giant and Meta says it plans to appeal the decision

Italy’s data protection agency has fined Facebook parent company Meta €805m ($887m) for accessing users’ photos without their specific consent.

Through the Facebook application for Android devices, Meta accessed photographs, videos and related metadata belonging to Italian users “without obtaining specific consent and without properly informing them”, the authority said in a statement.

Meta said it would appeal the decision. A company spokesperson said “we strongly disagree” with the assessment by the regulators “and the disproportionate level of the fine”.