Facebook faces European data audit

PEOPLE DATABASE Facebook is due a visit from European regulators who are concerned about the way that it can see what people think, see and do.

According to the Telegraph, the European Commission wants to stop the way that Facebook "eavesdrops" on communications and gathers information on users' sexuality, political leanings, religious beliefs and locations.

Viviane Reding, a VP of the European Commission and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship said that changes to the scope of local data protection rules will bring firms like Facebook and their practices under their remit.

"I call on service providers - especially social media sites - to be more transparent about how they operate. Users must know what data is collected and further processed [and] for what purposes," she said. "Consumers in Europe should see their data strongly protected, regardless of the EU country they live in and regardless of the country in which companies which process their personal data are established."

This week, Reding and the EU's data protection working party will meet to discuss Facebook and will discuss whether or not it needs a decent audit. Up for review by the party could be things like the 4,000 word agreement that all Facebook users have to sign up to before joining. This user agreement licenses Facebook to use members' data as it sees fit.

A spokesman for the UK Information Commissioner, the UK data watchdog that is part of the review party said, "Facebook should ensure that any data it collects should be used in the manner that its users expect."

"If personal data is being passed on to a third party or used for targeted advertising then this should be made clear to the user when they sign up to the site and reinforced when users are invited to use an application."

We have asked Facebook for a response.

Update
Facebook has responded to our request for comment and told The INQUIRER that the Telegraph report contains a decent amount of hyperbole.

"The Sunday Telegraph article is sensational and misrepresents both how Facebook's advertising model works and the current advertising privacy debate across Europe. Crucially, people on Facebook have given consent to receive targeted advertising through our terms when they sign up to our free service - unlike other online advertising models. We have spent considerable time and effort building an ads model which allows people to see relevant targeted advertising whilst respecting their privacy," said a spokesperson in an email.

"We are fully compliant with EU law, have our international headquarters in Dublin and unlike some other online services, we do not use tracking technology to serve adverts. Our system only provides advertisers with anonymised and aggregated information for the purpose of targeting ads. We do not share people's names with an advertiser without a person's explicit consent and we never sell personal information to third parties." µ