London ex-Meta engineer investigated over alleged Facebook image breach
The suspect, an engineer based in London, is believed to have created a tool that enabled him to reach users’ personal photographs while getting around the platform’s security protections.
A former Meta employee is under police investigation in the UK over allegations that he unlawfully accessed and downloaded about 30,000 private Facebook images.
The suspect, an engineer based in London, is believed to have created a tool that enabled him to reach users’ personal photographs while getting around the platform’s security protections.
Meta said the issue came to light more than a year ago. The company said it dismissed the employee immediately after discovering the breach and referred the matter to law enforcement.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that a man in his 30s was arrested in November 2025 on suspicion of gaining unauthorised access to computer material. He has since been released on bail and is expected to report back to police in May, according to the Press Association.
The case is now being handled by officers from the Met’s Cybercrime Unit after the force received a referral from the FBI in the United States.
Meta said it had contacted the Facebook users affected by the incident and had taken steps to strengthen its security systems following the discovery.
The investigation adds to a series of legal and regulatory problems that have continued to follow the social media giant in recent years.
In 2022, Meta was fined €265 million by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission after the personal information of hundreds of millions of Facebook users was made public in a separate breach. Then, in September 2024, the same regulator imposed another penalty of €91 million after finding that some user passwords had been stored internally without encryption.
The company has also been facing wider scrutiny over the impact of its platforms.
In March this year, a jury in California found that Meta and Google had deliberately designed addictive social media systems that harmed the mental health of a young woman identified as Kaley. She was awarded $6 million in damages.
Both companies said they disagreed with that decision and planned to appeal.
