Instagram is set to be fined 405 million euros (U.S. $401 million) by Ireland’s data protection regulator for failing to adequately secure teenage users’ data in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The penalty will be the largest to date handed down by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), the primary European data regulator for the social media giant. It is the third fine in the past year against a subsidiary of Meta, following sanctions of €17 million (then-U.S. $18.6 million) in March against Meta Ireland (formerly Facebook Ireland) and €225 million (then-U.S. $267 million) in September 2021 against WhatsApp.

Neil Hodge is a freelance business journalist and photographer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom. He writes on insurance and risk management, corporate governance, internal audit, compliance, and legal...