Facebook could face €100,000 fine for holding data that users have deleted

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Facebook could face a fine of up to €100,000 (£87,000) after an Austrian law student discovered the social networking site held 1,200 pages of personal data about him, much of which he had deleted.

Max Schrems, 24, decided to ask Facebook for a copy of his data in June after attending a lecture by a Facebook executive while on an exchange programme at Santa Clara University in California.

The firm initially fobbed him off, but Schrems persisted. He was shocked when he eventually received a CD from California containing messages and information he says he had deleted from his profile in the three years since he joined the site.

After receiving the data, Schrems decided to log a list of 22 separate complaints with the Irish data protection commissioner, which next week is to carry out its first audit of Facebook. He wrote to Ireland after discovering that European users are administered by the Irish Facebook subsidiary. A spokeswoman for the commissioner confirmed its officers would be investigating alleged breaches raised by Schrems as part of the audit. If the commissioner decides to prosecute and Facebook or any employees are found guilty of data protection breaches, the maximum penalty is a fine of €100,000.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/20/facebook-fine-holding-data-deleted

[Smilo]

1. Good for him... about time Facebook et al were held accountable n/t

[Occulus]

5. Held accountable?!!!??

Do you have any idea how much money Facebook has?

This isn't being "held accountable". This is the equivalent of a parking fine for Facebook!

:banghead: :nuke: :banghead:

[Bill McBlueState]

2. you definitely need the euro sign for this post!

Such a fine would only be levied in one of those countries that cares about consumer rights.

[alp227]

3. hey, if corporations are people, and people who steal are prosecuted,

why can't Mark Zuckerberg spend even a second in jail for this?

[Kaleko]

4. Europe versus facebook.

From Max Schrems' website: http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html

23/9 “Timeline” - Limitless data mining got a name!
We are strongly opposing Facebooks plans to store every song you listen, every message you send and every step you take for an unlimited archive. German news seem to be rather critical as well. In many of your complaints we raised the question of deleting content and “digital forgetting” on Facebook (see e.g. complaint 15: http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Complaints/complaints.html#15).

We do not think that these systems are benefiting costumers {sic} and we also think that they are against European data protection laws.

The only once {sic} that are sure happy about Facebook’s new plans: Advertisers and police forces that get a limitless pool of data about everyone of us.