MADRID (Reuters) -Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday his government would investigate Facebook and Instagram owner Meta for possible violation of privacy of users of its social media applications.
The probe stems from research carried out by several international research centres that found the company had used a hidden mechanism to track the web activity of Android device users, Sanchez’s office said in a statement.
“In Spain, the law is above any algorithm or any large technology platform,” Sanchez said, according to the statement. “And anyone who violates our rights will pay the consequences.”
The government said Meta may have violated various European Union laws on security and privacy including its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the ePrivacy Directive, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act.
Meta will be called to testify before a lower house committee, it added.
(Reporting by Charlie Devereux and Aislinn Laing, editing by Andrei Khalip and David Latona)
