BBC reports that the same student who causes tsures for Facebook over disclosing user data and facial recognition is not happy with Facebook again. Max Schrems and Europe v Facebook are hoping to take Facebook to court .
“The Irish authority is miles away from other European data protection authorities in its understanding of the law, and failed to investigate many things. Facebook also gave the authority the run-around,” it said in a statement.
It feels that the social network has failed to fully implement the changes.
Some 40,000 users have exercised their right to get a copy of all the data Facebook is holding on them but the group is unhappy about the tools the social network provides to users and is critical that, in 13 cases, the social network failed to meet the deadline for data delivery.
It is also questioning why facial recognition has only be deactivated for EU citizens given that Ireland is responsible for all users outside of the US and Canada.
Facebook, of course, claims it is in compliance with data protection laws and cites the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s reports as evidence. You can read the news story on BBC. Georgina Prodhan of Reuters also covers this story.
I really give credit to Schrems for persistence and what, to date, has been some of the most effective advocacy we’ve seen. But as I said before, there’s something very wrong or lax in our country that we have to essentially outsource these issues to Europe to make any inroads on user controls and privacy.