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CIPPIC complaint: Facebook "a minefield of privacy invasion" |
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Written by Daniel
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Friday, 30 May 2008 |
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Facebook is the focus of a new complaint in Canada over its privacy policies and practices. By Jacqui Cheng | Published: May 30, 2008 - 12:10PM CT
ARS Technica
The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) filed the complaint this morning, asking the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to review what the CIPPIC believes are various violations of Canadian privacy law. There are 22 violations in all, says CIPPIC, making Facebook "a minefield of privacy invasion."
Facebook's policies and practices were analyzed by a "team of law students" over the winter, resulting in their discovery of what they believe to be numerous violations of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Some of the issues raised in the complaint are a little benign: for example, CIPPIC takes issue with the fact that all of a user's friends can see Wall posts (comments) left by other friends, and that it's not easy to simply delete all Wall posts with a single click. Other issues, however, are more serious, like a user's inability to easily delete his or her account and all the data associated with it. (Instead, users can choose to suspend their accounts, leaving their data dormant with Facebook—for potential reactivation—for an unspecified amount of time.) [Comments...] |
