Canada’s privacy commissioner says Facebook violated its privacy laws by failing to defend users’ private records, based on research that stemmed from the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
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The commissioner plans to take Facebook to federal court because the social media large is allegedly refusing to force the commissioner’s suggestions to strengthen its privacy controls.
“Facebook’s refusal to behave responsibly is deeply troubling given the good-sized amount of sensitive non-public information users have entrusted to this organization,” Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien says in an announcement. “Their privacy framework was empty, and their indistinct phrases were so elastic that they were now longer significant for privacy safety.”
Therrien says that Facebook has disregarded the findings as “evaluations.” He adds: “It is untenable that organizations are allowed to reject my office’s legal findings as mere reviews.”
Canada’s privacy commissioner can’t levy fines or service orders that would make its suggestions binding. But it can go to the federal court, which can pressure Facebook to make changes. Therrien used the situation to make arguments that Canada’s federal privacy law needs to be bolstered.
Facebook says it offered “concrete measures” to comply with the guidelines and agreed to go into right into a compliance agreement.
“After many months of good-faith cooperation and prolonged negotiations, we are disillusioned that the OPC considers the troubles raised on this file unresolved,” the agency says.
Therrien’s comments factor to less of a privacy hassle and more of a democracy one “because huge groups now see laws as mere suggestions,” writes Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute.
“What’s first-rate is that the Canadian privacy commissioner advised Facebook, ‘Here’s how you are violating the law, right here’s a way to stop breaking the law. Please achieve this.’ And Facebook’s response became, ‘No,'” Stoller writes in a tweet.
Violation: No Meaningful Consent
Canada investigated Facebook in 2009, finding that the organization sought “overly large, uninformed consent for disclosures of personal statistics to third-party apps, in addition to insufficient tracking to defend against unauthorized access by those apps.”
As a result of that investigation, Canada says it made hints, but Facebook did not comply with them.
The privacy commissioner released another investigation in March 2018. The investigation centered on information sharing and 0.33-birthday celebration apps, including whether Canadians’ personal statistics changed into exposure to Cambridge Analytica, a U.K.-primarily based voter-profiling company. It additionally checked out Facebook’s consent mechanisms.
It’s uncertain if Canadian statistics turned into exceeded Cambridge Analytica, although Facebook says it wasn’t. But the privacy commissioner concluded that Facebook allowed a character quiz called “This Is Your Digital Life” to collect private data without proper consent.
