Facebook runs afoul of Canadian law: privacy czar; Findings set stage for

“Certainly we think that our approach right now is compliant with Canadian
law, and to the extent that we would need to establish that, we’re ready to
do that,” he said.

 

The probe began last year after the Canadian Internet Policy and Public
Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa filed an 11-part complaint,
alleging Facebook violated key provisions of Canada’s Personal Information
Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the country’s private-sector
privacy law.

 

While some portions of the complaint were tossed out, the report notes
Facebook has already changed certain practices and policies flagged by the
complaint to the satisfaction of the investigators, including instituting
new privacy settings.

 

But the report singles out outstanding problems the commissioner says put
the social-networking site at odds with Canada’s privacy law.

 

In addition to an “overarching” concern relating to the “confusing” or
“incomplete” way in which Facebook provides information to users about its
privacy practices, the report concluded Facebook’s policy to keep
indefinitely the personal information of people who have deactivated their
accounts is a violation of the privacy law.

 

But the biggest sticking point has to do with the practice of sharing users’
personal information with third-party developers that create Facebook
applications, such as games and quizzes.

 

“I want to underline that this is no trivial issue. There are close to a
million developers out there, scattered across some 180 countries,”
Elizabeth Denham, assistant privacy commissioner and lead investigator, told
reporters.

 

On Thursday, Kelly said he looks forward to talks with the commissioner in
the next few weeks to try and resolve the matters.

 

“There are extensive controls in place, and I think that it’s unfortunate
that they haven’t been fully recognized in the report, but we have
confidence that we will get to a good place.”

 

But David Fewer, acting director of the University of Ottawa law clinic that
filed the complaint, anticipates a court battle over third-party
applications.

 

“Facebook can’t say the law is wrong here, or is being misinterpreted.
Instead, what they need to do is go back and re-engineer how they do
third-party apps. I think they rolled out third-party apps out without
figuring privacy obligations into the design. There was a fork in the road
early on in the design. They went left and they needed to go right. And left
is where the money tree is,” Fewer said.

 

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