Meta Fails to Comply with Instagram Outage Reporting Obligation... 5 Million KRW Fine Imposed

Despite Three Requests from the Ministry of Science and ICT, Report Submitted After a Day
"Obligation to Prevent the Spread of Large-Scale Digital Disasters Must Be Followed"

Yonhap News

The government has imposed a fine of 5 million KRW on Meta, the operator of Instagram and Facebook platforms. On the 28th, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it would impose a 5 million KRW fine on Meta for failing to comply with the obligation to report communication disasters under the Act on the Development of Broadcasting and Communications.

Legally, when a communication disaster or failure occurs, it must be reported to the Ministry of Science and ICT without delay within 10 minutes to ensure prompt recovery and prevent the spread of damage.

However, Meta did not comply with the reporting obligation regarding the Instagram outage that occurred on March 22.

The Ministry of Science and ICT stated, "Despite three requests to report whether the failure occurred, Meta delayed reporting by 24 hours and 19 minutes after the incident without reasonable grounds."

The Ministry issued a prior notice of the fine in June, and after a comprehensive review based on Meta’s submitted opinions and on-site inspection results, the fine was finally imposed on this day.

Kim Nam-cheol, Director of Information Security and Network Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, "Failures in value-added communication services closely related to the daily lives of the public can affect other value-added communication services. To prevent the spread into a major digital disaster, large value-added communication service providers must comply with reporting obligations under the law in case of failures."