Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, has fined Meta €805 million (about $887 million). It found that the Facebook app for Android read photos, videos and their metadata from users' phones without specific consent. The feature in question is the gallery suggestions panel, available since 2023, which offers pictures from your camera roll as ideas for posts while you scroll. The regulator puts the number of affected Android users in Italy at about 20 million. Meta has 60 days to switch the feature off by default and ask for separate, specific consent (Reuters broke the story in English).

The size of the fine will get the headlines. The reasoning behind it matters more to anyone who keeps footage on a phone.

The rule that applied doesn't care whether anything was uploaded

According to TNW's summary of the decision, the Garante acted under Article 122 of Italy's privacy code, which implements the EU's ePrivacy rules rather than GDPR. That article treats a smartphone as part of a person's private sphere. Any access to what the phone holds needs free, informed consent, even if no data leaves the device and no harm results.

That is a sharper standard than most people carry in their heads. The usual mental model is: if it never goes to the cloud, it's private. The Garante's position is that reading your gallery is already the intrusion. Where the bytes end up afterwards is a separate question. (It is reserving that question for a separate look at a cloud-processing feature Meta launched in 2026.)

How one permission covered too much

The core finding is mundane, which is exactly why it is useful. Facebook asked for gallery access once, for the whole app, after a vaguely worded prompt about enabling other features. A user who tapped "Allow" to share one photo had also switched on a feature that browsed everything else in the gallery.

This is the gap Android has spent the last few releases narrowing:

  • Android 13 split the old catch-all storage permission into separate media permissions for images, video and audio.
  • Android 14 added partial access. When an app asks for photos and videos, you can pick "Select photos and videos" (or "Allow limited access", depending on the phone) and hand over only specific items instead of the whole library.
  • The system photo picker lets an app receive just the files you choose, with no gallery permission at all.
  • Google Play's photo and video permissions policy now expects apps without a core need for broad library access to use the picker instead.

None of these protects a permission you granted years ago. Broad access, once given, tends to stay given.

A five-minute check worth doing today

You don't need to wait for a regulator in your own country. On most Android phones:

  1. Open Settings → Security & privacy → Privacy → Permission manager (on some brands it is Settings → Apps → Permissions or Privacy → Permission manager; the path varies by manufacturer).
  2. Tap Photos and videos.
  3. Look at the "Allowed all the time" / "Allow all" list. For each app, ask whether it needs your entire library or only the occasional file you choose.
  4. Move anything that only needs occasional files to "Allow limited access" or "Don't allow". The app will fall back to the photo picker when you next share something.
  5. Repeat for Camera and Microphone while you are there.

It takes a few minutes, and it is the one step that addresses what this decision was about.

Why this matters more if your phone is also a camera

If you use an old phone as a home camera, a dashcam, or a baby or pet monitor, its media library stops being a scrapbook. It becomes a record of rooms, routines and comings and goings. Every app on that phone with "all photos and videos" access can read that record, whether or not the camera app ever uploads anything.

That is the honest limit of "local-only". We build Background Camera RemoteStream, which records to the phone itself, with no account and no cloud upload. That keeps our servers out of the picture, but it doesn't keep other apps on the same phone out of it. Only your permission choices do that. So our practical advice, ours included, for anyone running a camera app on a dedicated phone:

  • Keep the camera phone lean. Uninstall social and shopping apps you don't use on it. Fewer apps means fewer gallery permissions to audit.
  • Audit media access after every major app update. The Garante noted that Meta's fixes reached only users who updated, and the reverse is also true: an update can bring a new feature that leans on a permission you granted long ago.
  • Prefer apps that use the photo picker when they only need the occasional file.
  • Treat "it stays on the device" as necessary, not sufficient. It answers where footage lives. Permissions answer who on the device can read it.

The takeaway for developers

If you ship an Android app that touches media, this decision is a cheap lesson. One permission request should map to one clearly explained purpose. If a feature needs the gallery, ask for it when the user turns that feature on, not bundled behind something else. Default it off, and use the photo picker wherever "the files the user chose" is enough. Meta's legal argument was about jurisdiction, but its product problem was a permission doing more than the user believed they had agreed to.

Background Camera RemoteStream records video with the screen off, can stream to YouTube Live or view over your local network, and keeps recordings on the phone. No account, no cloud. Get it on Google Play · superfunicular.com

Sources: TNW, 14 Nov 2026 · Reuters, 14 Nov 2026 · Garante decision