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Canadian Group Files Facebook Privacy Complaint
bergkamp writes "A Canadian public policy group filed a complaint charging Facebook with 22 separate violations of a Canadian personal information protection law. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, based at the University of Ottawa, asked the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to investigate what it describes as Facebook's failure to inform members (PDF) how their personal information is disclosed to third parties for advertising and other commercial purposes. The complaint also alleges that Facebook has failed to obtain permission from members for disclosure of their personal information. The claim is that that Facebook violates the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act, which Philippa Lawson, the clinic's director, said is much stricter than US personal information protection laws."
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am assuming this will hit the flametard mods. :)
However, as being a Canadian, who feels reasonably well informed. I also did read the article, it did make sense.
The laws are there to make for disclosure. Which according to many on this site, and others is a good thing. How many times is the battle cry 'how come they didn't open up this standard '.
I would rather have this sort of law pushed internationally instead of that dread dmca, as well as many other entertainment industry issues, as well as setting international trade policies.
At least this law is for the people.
This is the same law that people are using to smack Bell with. Many people seemed to think that was also a good thing. In fact I believe that CPPIC was the same group that also lobbied the crtc with CAIP.
I also for one would be using this law if I found out that some company decided to loose my credit card information. I think a few million dollars would do nicely to appease my pain and suffering.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
A couple of months ago, I noticed that Facebook started telling me that I needed to turn on Javascript, even though I had facebook.com in my allow list in NoScript. I noticed that there was now a second server required, http://www.fbcdn.net/ (I checked CIRA's WhoIs and facebook.ca was snatched up by someone else in 2005). I was recently in the states, so I disallowed fbcdn.net in NoScript (just to see), and there were no complains about my Javascript setting until I returned north of the border.
This seems to imply that there are separate servers running for Canadians accessing Facebook, so at a minimum, that would give some leverage into forcing them to follow Canada's rules. Now, if those servers are physically located in Canada (no, I haven't bothered doing a traceroute to find out where fbcdn.net ends up), that would definitely force them to follow those rules.
Slightly OT, but in my current job and we recently went looking for a new hosting company to host our database (which has a fair amount of private data in it). Because my company gets a large amount of our budget for the federal and provincial governments (it's a non-profit) we like to abide by as many of the federal government rules when it comes to IT and data privacy. One of those rules is any private data must only be hosted in Canada and it can not leave the country. A few companies came to us as "the Canadian branch of hosting company X". The conversations went like this:
Me: Where are your datacenters?
Them: We have them all over the world.
Me: Ok, but in which of those datacenters is our data going to be physically hosted?
Them: We can do distributed hosting so it's in many different datacenters
Me: Yes or no, Are these datacenters in Canadian territory?
Them:
Me: So, I'll take that as a no, which means that you know we can't host with you because of the government ruling about hosting private data outside the country.
Them:
Me:
More and more Canadian companies are taking the approach of hosting only in Canada, if only to ensure that they know the rules for data privacy and know there won't be a conflict between Canada's and the other country's.
If Facebook does not have a physical presence in Canada, exactly how will Canada enforce this law on them, should Canada rule that it does apply? I am pretty sure that the current U.S. Supreme Court would not rule in Canada's favor on this, considering that they still seem to support the ruling that state's cannot enforce their laws on businesses located in other states that do business with residents of said state (sales tax).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I'm surprised that its also impossible to leave facebook and have your details deleted, without contacting them directly and then there's about 100 step process in order to get shot of it.
Actually, I don't really give a rats *ss about any foreign governments toes I just happen step on.
Up to a point, but you need to make sure that if you *do* offend any foreign governments or law enforcement bodies, that you do not subsequently either visit these countries, or hold any significant assets in their jusirdiction, or visit any country that might extradite you to the country or countries you offended. So you do need to 'give a rats ass' to the point of keeping track of where not to go. And be sure that your own country won't extradite you in such circumstances. If you're a US citizen you're probably OK under current extradition laws; if you live in (say) the UK you're on dodgy ground if the country that wants you is the US or another EU country.
It was always the information collected from other users that bothered me about Facebook. I signed up briefly in the early days, keen to see what all the fuss was about. Despite deliberately giving them almost no personal information about me, within a few days they practically had half my life story, generously volunteered by my friends with no doubt the best of intentions but certainly not my permission or consent. I deleted my account soon after joining, only to discover later that they don't really delete the information anyway.
There doesn't seem to be much point suggesting on Slashdot that this is unreasonable, maybe even dangerous, behaviour, though: last time I just got heavily down-modded and told I should read some Ts&Cs page on an obscure URL that I was supposed to have found before signing up (which, as far as I could tell, was not even available to non-users at the time). I guess "information wants to be free" mentality trumps "identity theft can ruin your life" and "privacy is important" around here. :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I'm not sure Facebook would lock up 10% of its user bas.
"Facebook [...] has around 70 million registered users worldwide - including around seven million Canadians."
http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/facebook-falls-foul-of-canadian-law-students.asp/4795/