Belgian privacy regulator asserts authority over Facebook

News Broadband Belgium 18 MAY 2015
Belgian privacy regulator asserts authority over Facebook
The Belgian Privacy Commission has confirmed that Facebook is in violation of local laws on personal data protection and announced plans to investigate the social network further. The Belgian regulator and its Dutch and German counterparts have been investigating Facebook since 2015; the French and Spanish regulators also recently joined the group. While Facebook claims it is only subject to oversight by the data commissioner in Ireland, where its European office is based, the Belgian regulator has now asserted its authority over the US-based company, saying Belgian law applies because Facebook has a small office in the country. 

The Belgian Privacy Commission issued recommendations following its preliminary investigation and based on an earlier released academic study it commissioned into Facebook's privacy policy. The recommendations are based on just one of the ten issues highlighted in the report, the use by Facebook of website plug-ins to track browsing behaviour of both Facebook members and non-members of the social network. As it does not ask prior permission to use cookies to track visitors to the site, it is in violation of Belgian and EU privacy law. 

Facebook has to date rejected the authority of the Belgian regulator and the findings of its study, saying only that the tracking issues were the result of technical bugs that it was fixing. The regulator called for Facebook to change its policies to bring it in line with EU law, recommended that other websites that use Facebook plug-ins adopt an opt-in system for cookie tracking and called for internet users to use browser add-ons that block tracking and allow for 'incognito' browsing. The Belgian regulator said it aims to investigate thoroughly each of the privacy issues raised in the study into Facebook's policies. 

Categories:

Internet

Companies:

Facebook

Regions:

Europe

Countries:

Belgium

Tags:

Data services, Messaging, Regulations, IT - applications, Portals / social media, Advertising services

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