Privacy Offices Examine Legality of Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button
14 September 2012
On the heels of the decision of Thilo Weichert, the data commissioner in the German state of Schleswig Holstein, that Facebook’s “Like” button was a breach of local, federal and European Union law, Ireland’s data protection commissioner has also been asked to determine whether the Like button is legal.
The lobbying group Europe v. Facebook charges that Facebook has recently founded a subsidiary in Dublin, Ireland. “It is speculated that this is mainly to avoid American taxes, but this means that Facebook is not only saving US taxes, but is also subject to European privacy and consumer law, which is generally tougher than US laws,” the group said in a printed statement.
According to Facebook’s terms, all users outside of the US and Canada have a contract with the Irish subsidiary. According to the group, this provision applies to about 70% of worldwide users of Facebook.
The group has filed 16 complaints against Facebook Ireland with the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). “If the Irish DPC finds only some of the 16 complaints justified, it may mean that Facebook has to undertake serious changes in its practices,” the group says.
At the heart of the group’s complaints is the allegation that Facebook makes the users belief that they can delete information if they want to. “Even in its privacy policy, Facebook is claiming, for example, that ‘If another user tags you in a photo or video or at a place, you can remove the tag.’ But according to the data sets that were sent by Facebook, the following information is never deleted but only ‘invisible’: tags in pictures, unfriended friends, all messages (including chats), pokes, changes of names and deleted email addresses; even some deleted wall posts could be found in the data sets,” the group said. “It is unclear if there are more undeleted pieces of information because Facebook did not grant access to all personal data held.”
The group has posted examples of removed data that Facebook retains – with sensitive data redacted – on its website at europe-v-facebook.org.
