Facebook resisted Irish data protection clampdown in 2011
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Social media giant Facebook resisted attempts by the Data Protection Commissioner to clamp down on the data collection practices now central to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Facebook was told in 2011 and 2012 that allowing apps to collect and process friends’ profile data and likes could not be justified, the Sunday Business Post reports, but changes were implemented only years later.
A spokesperson for the Data Protection Commissioner told the SBP: “Specifically concerning the friends data issue, Facebook continued to assert a lawful basis justified by reference to the fact that the service is a social network and the aim of the data collection and processing was to improve the ‘in-app experience’ of users.
“They pointed to the fact that their app developer policy prevented any onward sale or disclosure of the data to further third parties without consent of the individuals.”
The DPC is “urgently seeking from Facebook further information on how it is overseeing adherence by app developers to the terms and policies attached to use of the Facebook platform, including conditions such as the prohibition on selling on data to further third parties”.
Following “detailed discussions”, the watchdog said the social media platform eventually “implemented a platform upgrade in 2014 which restricted the apps’ access to the data of a user’s friends”.
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