South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission has levied a fine of six-point-seven billion won on Facebook and filed a criminal complaint against the firm.

The commission held a meeting Wednesday and announced the decision, saying the social networking site gave personal information of its users to other businesses without their consent.

It particularly noted the provision of privacy data of even "Facebook friends" and that such violations continued for six years from 2012, affecting at least three-point-three million out of the 18 million Facebook users in Korea.

The commission also said Facebook tried to sabotage its investigation by submitting false or incomplete records. 

This marks the first sanction imposed by the watchdog which was launched this August. In a statement, Facebook said it fully cooperated with the inspection and expressed regret over the criminal complaint.