Summary
A former Meta employee in London is under investigation for allegedly downloading 30,000 private Facebook photos. The person reportedly created a program to access these images without being detected, leading to his arrest in November 2025. Meta fired him and improved their security after the breach was discovered over a year ago.
Key Facts
- The former Meta employee is suspected of improperly downloading 30,000 Facebook user photos.
- The Metropolitan Police in London are handling the investigation, following a tip-off from the FBI in the US.
- Meta fired the employee and reported the incident to law enforcement once they found out.
- The engineer allegedly used a specially designed program to bypass security and access the photos.
- The man was arrested in November 2025, released on bail, and must report to police in May.
- Meta has notified the affected Facebook users and improved security since the incident.
- Meta faced previous fines for other security breaches, such as a €265 million fine by the Irish Data Protection Commission in 2022.
