The IT Nerd

Today, some execs from Facebook made a trip to Ottawa to be grilled in front of a House Of Commons committee hearing today. They got a rough ride according to the CBC. For example, when it came up that Facebook knew for two years that Cambridge Analytica swiped the data of tens of thousands of Canadians and the company did nothing, this happened:

Robert Sherman, deputy privacy officer for Facebook, conceded the company should have be more proactive in informing users that their raw data might have been used by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that helped the Leave campaign in the Brexit vote and the candidacy of U.S. President Donald Trump.

When asked why Facebook didn’t notify Canadians whose personal information was breached in 2016, Sherman said: “In retrospect, we should have done that.”

Kevin Chan, head of public policy for Facebook in Canada, offered an apology to Canadians whose profiles might have been compromised. Chan said Facebook was too idealistic — and “naive” — about how its technology is used, and didn’t focus enough on abuse.

“What is alleged to have occurred is a huge breach of trust to our users, and for that we are sorry,” Chan, ex-policy director for former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, told MPs on the House of Commons privacy committee.

Something else that came up is the fact that Facebook was taking steps to make sure that as many users as possible were not covered by GDPR which is something that I reported on this morning. As well as their feelings about GDPR. From there the grilling covered some veiled threats by Facebook to pull investments from Canada if there was too much regulation placed on the company:

Conservative MP Peter Kent questioned Facebook’s professed openness to tighter regulations or a strengthened Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), saying Canadian MPs were recently warned by Facebook officials in Washington, D.C. that such a move could result in Facebook dialling back its investments in Canada — notably its $7 million financial commitment to the artificial intelligence (AI) research hub in Montreal.

“We were told, almost in passing, that any new Canadian regulations might well put at risk Facebook investments in Canada,” Kent said. “I’m wondering if that same caution would still be made?”

Chan strenuously denied investment decisions are being tied to a country’s regulatory burden. “That is not our view, that is not the representation we would have made. In fact, we’re quite proud to be supporters of AI in Canada.”

Reached for comment later, Kent stood by his description of the initial warning from Facebook officials.

That’s the first time I’ve heard of a threat like that. But I’m not surprised by that as any sort or regulation could potentially hurt Facebook’s ability to make money. Finally, they were apparently caught potentially violating lobbying rules:

Chan also was questioned by NDP MP Charlie Angus about why he hadn’t yet registered as a lobbyist, given the fact that he’s met with senior cabinet members, including Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

The former Liberal aide said it wasn’t necessary for him to register since the portion of his work that could be classified as lobbying falls short of the Lobbying Act’s 20 per cent minimum threshold.

He added that the meeting with Morneau was simply to show him how best to use the Facebook Live function of the platform after the release of the federal budget. That prompted Angus to ask if Chan thought that sort of activity was a good use of his time.

Duff Conacher, the co-founder of Democracy Watch, said Thursday he’d be filing an official complaint with the lobbying commissioner over Chan’s failure to register, asking that an investigation be launched into Facebook’s activities in Ottawa.

Oops. That may not end well for them.

Clearly this was not a good day for Facebook in the nation’s capital. And this may encourage Canadian Facebook users to #DeleteFacebook.

Here’s the latest negative thing to hit Facebook. Steven Englehardt in partnership with Gunes Acar and Arvind Narayanan have found that a Facebook users’ data, including names, email addresses, age range, gender, location and profile picture, could be acquired up by third-party JavaScript trackers on websites making use of the ‘Login with Facebook’ feature. The researchers couldn’t say for sure what the third-party trackers were doing with the data though. But the fact that this is possible at all is problematic given the events of the past few weeks with the data leakage scandal.

The researchers noted that Facebook was not to blame for this situation, nor was it a security hole, but it does highlight some privacy problems. Thus it would be nice if Facebook did say something about it. But having said that, there is a list of sites which have a third-party script which includes functionality to access Facebook data. That way you can steer clear of them.

Or you can use this as another reason to #DeleteFacebook.

Facebook really isn’t going to win hearts and minds with this latest move. Reuters has uncovered a move by the social media company to make changes so that 1.5 billion of the 1.9 billion users of Facebook will not covered by the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into effect in the EU on May 25. How are going to do that? Here’s how:

Facebook members outside the United States and Canada, whether they know it or not, are currently governed by terms of service agreed with the company’s international headquarters in Ireland.

Next month, Facebook is planning to make that the case for only European users, meaning 1.5 billion members in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America will not fall under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes effect on May 25.

The previously unreported move, which Facebook confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday, shows the world’s largest online social network is keen to reduce its exposure to GDPR, which allows European regulators to fine companies for collecting or using personal data without users’ consent.

That removes a huge potential liability for Facebook, as the new EU law allows for fines of up to 4 percent of global annual revenue for infractions, which in Facebook’s case could mean billions of dollars.

That’s pretty crafty if I may say so. It also proves that it’s back to business as usual for Facebook now that the Mark Zuckerberg apology tour has ended. Let’s face it, GDPR would negatively impact their business model so Facebook is doing everything possible to fight it. Which means that if this really bothers you, the choice is clear. Either live with the fact that you’re dealing with a company that doesn’t take your privacy seriously, or #DeleteFacebook.