The IT Nerd

The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada has released a report that will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody. Apparently Facebook violates Canada’s privacy laws, and if they get their way, they want this addressed in court:

Despite its public acknowledgement of a “major breach of trust” in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook disputes the investigation findings of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia. The company also refuses to implement recommendations to address deficiencies.

“Facebook’s refusal to act responsibly is deeply troubling given the vast amount of sensitive personal information users have entrusted to this company,” says Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien. “Their privacy framework was empty, and their vague terms were so elastic that they were not meaningful for privacy protection.

“The stark contradiction between Facebook’s public promises to mend its ways on privacy and its refusal to address the serious problems we’ve identified – or even acknowledge that it broke the law – is extremely concerning.”

“Facebook has spent more than a decade expressing contrition for its actions and avowing its commitment to people’s privacy,” B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael McEvoy says, “but when it comes to taking concrete actions needed to fix transgressions they demonstrate disregard.”

And:

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada plans to take the matter to Federal Court to seek an order to force the company to correct its privacy practices.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. reserves its right under the Personal Information Protection Act to consider future actions against Facebook.  

I have to admit that I am over the moon about the actions that the Privacy Commissioner is taking. Facebook needs to be slapped silly because they really don’t want to take responsibility to protect their user base and do what is right. And when I say that they should be slapped, I mean hard. Make it hurt. Make them pay big bucks that Zuckerberg and company will notice. And create legislation that forces them to alter their behavior. That is the only way that this menace that is Facebook will be brought under control.

This entry was posted on April 25, 2019 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Facebook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.