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Germany Takes Legal Steps Against Facebook

Posted by samzenpus on from the verboten-knowledge dept.

crimeandpunishment writes "Not only are Germany and Facebook not friends, they might end up opponents in a courtroom. Germany has begun legal action over privacy. A German data protection official accuses Facebook of illegally saving personal data of people who don't use the site and haven't given permission to access their private information. Germany, which has also launched an investigation into Google over its Street View mapping program, has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world."

8 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. From TFA by LockeOnLogic · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Kohannes Caspar said his Hamburg data protection office had initiated legal steps that could result in Facebook being fined tens of thousands of euros for saving private information of individuals who don't use the site and haven't granted it access to their details."

    I bet this is less than their monthly coffee expenses.

  2. the War on Privacy continues.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah... and Facebook recently inked a big money deal with Activision-Blizzard, and now the latter has pushed out RealID into WoW, and they just announced that for SC2, and in a few months also for WoW, all forum posts in the official forums are going to have players' real names (first and last name) attached to them. That thread has over 35,000 posts in it already in it from irate WoW players, many of them (including myself) have already cancelled their accounts.

    Oh, but Blizzard's own forum moderators won't have THEIR names revealed, because they "cannot risk having their personal lives compromised by in-game issues". But they have no problem selling out their own customers.

    Its been a long time since I saw such a dickwad move by an MMO company. This rivals Star Wars Galaxies NGE in terms of betrayal of the player-base by Blizzard.

  3. Germany SWIFT banking data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Germany should take SWIFT to court over the handing over of banking data. I know you think that this is old history, but it isn't. TODAY the EU Parliament will vote in favour of letting the USA have full access to SWIFT's bank data under the guise of anti-terrorism.

    The only safeguard is a 'supervisor' from the EU.

    But what the EU Parliament is doing is not legal, they cannot overrule national bank privacy laws, and thus cannot prevent Germany taking SWIFT to court over handing German data over to the US. Likewise in some places it is a criminal offense to hand over that data, and those countries can seek arrest of SWIFT, even if EU says they're fine with it.

    Of course the USA rejected calls for Europe to see US bank data, and SWIFT continues to claim it is too big a task to filter their 15 million transactions a day.... right..... only 15 million transactions a day is too big an amount of data to filter...

  4. Re:Considering the data-collection craze... by robot+marvin · · Score: 4, Informative

    the last email from facebook I received had following footer " This message was intended for z.yx@xyz.xz. If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please click here to unsubscribe. Facebook, Inc. P.O. Box 10005, Palo Alto, CA 94303 " I do not have an account but I can unsubscribe to NOT receive such emails ! where is the choice - there is no choice they just store data from people who never or have not anymore an account with them. sorry they are not to be trusted and any legal action which tries to rectify things is more then appreciated.

  5. Admirable privacy laws by anorlunda · · Score: 3, Informative

    I lived in Sweden in the 80s. Sweden's privacy laws are a bit like Germany's.

    The most important thing they did was to require any computer owner to get a license from the government to store personal data. To get the license, they had to lay out what data and what the reasons were for storing it.

    Effectively, the law prohibited all personal data applications (and storage) except those that are permitted. In the USA, everything is permitted except that which is prohibited.

    I think they finally backed off enough to allow PC owners to keep an address book for personal use without a license, but it was still very strict.

    In reality, I would probably hate it if the US government tried the same law. It is so inept that the waiting time for licenses would be years and would require the aid of expensive lawyers. Still, I admire what Sweden was able to accomplish. The giant corporation that I worked for over there thought long and hard before putting customer data in a database.

    1. Re:Admirable privacy laws by xaxa · · Score: 3, Informative

      That's fairly crazy to me. If it's legal to keep and store data in paper records without a license

      It isn't in the UK -- the laws apply equally to both paper and electronic records. "Data" as covered by the Data Protection Act includes "information which is being processed by means of equipment operating automatically in response to instructions given for that purpose," (i.e. a computer), and "any set of information relating to individuals to the extent that, although the information is not processed by means of equipment operating automatically in response to instructions given for that purpose, the set is structured, either by reference to individuals or by reference to criteria relating to individuals, in such a way that specific information relating to a particular individual is readily accessible". See here

      I don't know about Sweden, but in the UK there are specific exemptions for individuals holding personal data like an address book.
      "The most comprehensive exemption applies when personal data is processed by a data controller who is an individual (not an organisation) only for the purposes of their personal, family or household affairs.

      Example
      An individual keeps a database of their friends’ and relatives’ names, addresses and dates of birth on their PC. They use the database for keeping track of birthdays and to produce address labels for Christmas cards. The domestic purposes exemption applies to this type of processing.

      Example
      An individual records the highlights of their summer holiday on a digital camcorder. The recording includes images of people they meet on holiday. Although those digital images are personal data, the domestic purposes exemption applies.

      None of the data protection principles apply in these circumstances, nor do any of the rights which the Act gives to data subjects. There is also no need to notify the ICO about processing for these purposes.

      So there is an almost total exemption from the Data Protection Act for individuals who just use personal data for their own domestic and recreational purposes. However, the Act still applies to the extent that the ICO may investigate if someone seems to have gone beyond the scope of the exemption, and we may take enforcement action where necessary."

  6. Re:Considering the data-collection craze... by bickerdyke · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/02/1254212/German-Data-Retention-Law-Ruled-Unconstitutional?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

    Yes, it has been stopped, for now. But not by the gouvernment but by the constitutional court. Politics already trying to modify it just enough to be not in violation of the constitution.

    more of that story would be available in german.

    --
    bickerdyke
  7. Related news by gencha · · Score: 5, Informative

    What I find the most fascinating about this, is that Facebook read the address book out of people's iPhone to find new friends for them online. And the collected data is permanently stored. German article: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,697733,00.html I don't know if this is the issue described in TFA as the site seems slashdotted.