The £500,000 fine, first posited in July, is the maximum allowable fine under the laws that were in place when the incidents occurred -- a silver lining for Facebook, as the sum is hardly likely to make a dent in its bank account. Should a similar event have taken place under the EU's GDPR, which took effect in May this year, Facebook could have faced a much larger fine of £17 million, or four percent of its global turnover. Again, not enough to bankrupt the company, but hefty enough to act as a significant deterrent for future misdemeanors.