Student privacy activists due to meet with Facebook
- 01 February, 2012 01:03
- Comments
Austrian student activists say they expect to meet Facebook representatives in Vienna next Monday in an attempt to resolve their disagreements over the social-networking site's privacy policies.
The student group Europe v. Facebook filed complaints about Facebook with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) in August and September last year. Coincidentally, the privacy regulator was already planning an audit of Facebook's privacy policy when it received the complaints.
Its audit report, released in December, made more than a dozen recommendations about how Facebook could improve privacy protections and data handling. The regulator said if the company complied with its recommendations it is unlikely it would be violating Irish and European privacy laws. Facebook agreed to many of the recommendations.
But Europe v. Facebook thinks the company hasn't gone far enough, and Ireland's regulator has been too soft, said Max Schrems, a law student at the University of Vienna.
"We think the Irish Data Protection Commissioner did not seriously enforce European law," Schrems said.
The Irish DPC said the meeting between the two was not mandated by data protection laws. If the complainant is not satisfied with the outcome, the DPC will examine the issues further and make a formal decision, the agency said in a statement. If the complainant is still not satisfied with the formal decision, they have a right to appeal to the courts.
Schrems said he plans to attend the meeting next Monday with a colleague. He expects Richard Allan, Facebook's director of policy for Europe, will be there along with a company representative from the U.S. Schrems said he hopes the low number of attendees on both sides will make the meeting more productive.
Following the meeting, Facebook is not obligated to take any action, Schrems said. Europe v. Facebook expects to continue to press the Irish DPC to make a final decision on some of the issues, he said.
Following the audit, Facebook agreed to make changes such as removing part of the IP addresses it logs from the "Like" social plug-in within 10 days. Facebook also said it will completely delete logs collected by the Like plug-in after 90 days.
Schrems said his group still plans to push harder to see more action on the 22 complaints filed by his group with the Irish DPC. The regulator received in total more than 180 complaints on data retention and disclosure.
Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com
- Bookmark this page
- Share this article
- Got more on this story? Email ARN
- Follow ARN on twitter
- Choice and Control: Considerations for Developing Enterprise Cloud Strategies
- MSP Guides for effective Endpoint Management Solutions
- McAfee Whitepaper: Building the Business Case for Privacy
- New Gateway Anti-Malware Technology Sets the Bar for Web Threat Protection (Sponsored by McAfee)
- Cloud and Co-Location Solutions
- CITRIX SYNERGY ’13: Look beyond Cloud infrastructure, says Liang
- CITRIX SYNERGY ’13: Qureshi addresses the trend of ‘mojility’
- CITRIX SYNERGY ’13: IT needs to be empowered, says Sallam
- CITRIX SYNERGY ’13: Christiancen highlights the need for collaboration
- CITRIX SYNERGY ’13: Devices will change how people work, says Duursma
-
Attack on Telenor was part of large cyberespionage operation with Indian origins: report
-
Box buys iOS app to improve its own
-
Growing mobile malware threat swirls (mostly) around Android
-
Barracuda Networks raises free capacity of Copy.com to 15GB
-
Coke gives peace a chance ( +16 photos)
Get exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events. 
