South Korea fined Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook, 21.62 billion won ($15.67 million) for unauthorized collection of sensitive user data and distribution to advertisers.

The national data protection agency revealed that information was collected from around 980,000 South Korean Facebook users, covering matters such as religion and political affiliation. The US tech giant did not seek user consent as required by law, the Personal Information Protection Commission confirmed on Tuesday.

The data was made available to approximately 4,000 advertisers. Moreover, Meta ignored users’ requests to access their personal information and failed to prevent a data leak involving about ten South Korean users, the agency said. A representative for Meta Korea declined to comment on the matter.

(With contributions from agencies.)