Answer privacy fears by today, Facebook told
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- August 15 was the deadline social advertising site Fa$ebook had to answer serious privacy concerns raised by Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, p2pnet pointed out on Saturday.
If she doesn’t get a satisfactory response by today, she has two weeks to take her concerns to Federal Court in Ottawa, “to try and get a court order requiring it to change its business practices to comply with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act,” notes the Canwest News Service.
We found serious privacy gaps in the way the site operates, Stoddart said in a July 16 statement.
It followed complaints by the CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic) after students studied Fa$ebook`s practices in depth, with special focus on privacy issues as they relate to Canadian law.
Stoddart’s investigation also, “raised significant concerns around the sharing of users` personal information with third-party developers creating Facebook applications such as games and quizzes,” it said, going on:
“There are more than 950,000 developers in some 180 countries.) Facebook lacks adequate safeguards to effectively restrict these outside developers from accessing profile information, the investigation found.
Says the executive summary to the investigation »»»
The Complaint
The complaint against Facebook by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) comprised 24 allegations ranging over 12 distinct subjects. These included default privacy settings, collection and use of users` personal information for advertising purposes, disclosure of users` personal information to third-party application developers, and collection and use of non-users` personal information.
The Issues
The central issue in CIPPIC`s allegations was knowledge and consent. Our Office focused its investigation on whether Facebook was providing a sufficient knowledge basis for meaningful consent by documenting purposes for collecting, using, or disclosing personal information and bringing such purposes to individuals` attention in a reasonably direct and transparent way. Retention of personal information was an issue that surfaced specifically in the allegations relating to account deactivation and deletion and non-users` personal information. Security safeguards figured prominently in the allegations about third-party applications and Facebook Mobile.
Findings and Conclusions
On four subjects (e.g., deception and misrepresentation, Facebook Mobile), the Assistant Commissioner found no evidence of any contravention of the Act and concluded that the allegations were not well-founded. On another four subjects (e.g., default privacy settings, advertising), the Assistant Commissioner found Facebook to be in contravention of the Act, but concluded that the allegations were well-founded and resolved on the basis of corrective measures proposed by Facebook in response to her recommendations.
On the remaining subjects of third-party applications, account deactivation and deletion, accounts of deceased users, and non-users` personal information, the Assistant Commissioner likewise found Facebook to be in contravention of the Act and concluded that the allegations were well-founded. In these four cases, there remain unresolved issues where Facebook has not yet agreed to adopt her recommendations. Most notably, regarding third-party applications, the Assistant Commissioner determined that Facebook did not have adequate safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized access by application developers to users` personal information, and furthermore was not doing enough to ensure that meaningful consent was obtained from individuals for the disclosure of their personal information to application developers.
Follow-up
Where well-founded allegations were deemed to be resolved, the Assistant Commissioner notified Facebook that her Office would follow up after 30 days to verify implementation of the proposed corrective measures. Where well-founded allegations remained unresolved, the Assistant Commissioner asked Facebook to reconsider the recommendations in question and gave notice that her Office, in following up on other matters after 30 days, would also check for evidence of acceptance and implementation of those outstanding recommendations or acceptable alternatives.
Definitely stay tuned.
p2pnet – Time runs out for Facebook in privacy probe, August 15, 2009
Canwest News Service – Facebook faces privacy watchdog, August 17, 2009
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August 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Bark at the Moon.