Meta, the parent company of the Facebook platform, has been under an FTC order for more than a decade. It paid a record $5-billion fine in 2019 for privacy violations, entering into a new settlement that increased the responsibility of the company’s board to protect user data.

The FTC opened an administrative proceeding Wednesday, alleging Meta has continued to violate the law by allowing third-party developers to access user data and misrepresenting to parents the level of control over kids’ communications in its Messenger Kids app.

“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”

Meta called the FTC’s latest proceeding a “political stunt” and said it will vigorously fight the agency.

“Despite three years of continual engagement with the FTC around our agreement, they provided no opportunity to discuss this new, totally unprecedented theory,” Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said. “FTC Chair Lina Khan’s insistence on using any measure — however baseless – to antagonise American business has reached a new low. We have spent vast resources building and implementing an industry-leading privacy programme under the terms of our FTC agreement.”

The FTC is seeking modifications to the earlier settlement that would ban Meta from using facial recognition tools or monetising children’s data. The order would apply to all of Meta’s products — its main Facebook social media platform, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Oculus.

Under the earlier settlement, Meta hired Protiviti — a consulting firm owned by Robert Half International — to independently assess its privacy compliance. In a July 2021 report, Protiviti found “gaps and weaknesses” in the way Meta’s privacy programme is organised, the FTC said. The report concluded “substantial additional work is required and additional investments must be made”, the agency said in its filing, though further details were redacted.

The administrative proceeding will take place before the FTC’s three commissioners, all Democrats — Khan, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. They’ll review the evidence and issue a decision. Meta will have an opportunity to respond to the allegations and can appeal the FTC’s ruling to a federal appeals court.