Facebook: the Law Says You Can't Have Your Data

An anonymous reader writes "After making 22 complaints regarding Facebook's various practices, the Austrian group Europe versus Facebook stumbled upon an important tidbit: Facebook says it is not required to give you a copy of some of your personal data if it deems doing so would adversely affect its trade secrets or intellectual property. I followed up with Facebook and learned the company insists the law places 'reasonable limits' on the data that has to be provided."

Comments

Skeptical

[nonprofiteer]

I've looked into this, and I'm fairly certain that the particular piece of information that Facebook is holding back from these (800+ page) reports is a user's biometric faceprint. Claiming that the code for those prints is Facebook's intellectual property does NOT strike me as unreasonable.

Re:Skeptical

[TheRaven64]

Fortunately, when you clicked the 'I agree' button, you gave Facebook a commercial, transferable, sublicensable, license to anything that you uploaded, and you agreed that you owned the copyright, or the right to make such a grant, on everything that you uploaded.

Re:Skeptical

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If I have a picture of you, and I want to perform some processing of it, and doing so does not adversely effect you, why should I not perform that processing?

Because in Europe, such a picture would be considered personal data pretty much everywhere, and thus it would fall under data protection laws that explicitly provide certain rights to individuals regarding personal data about them and certain limits on what anyone else may do with that data. And no, you can't magically negate all of those rights and responsibilities with a contract of adhesion.

One of the rights typically available to individuals under those laws is the right to inspect any personal data held about them. Wriggling out of that one is going to take a lot of shady legalese, which appears to be what Facebook is engaging in here. Staying wriggled out of it if it turns out that the data processing is inconsistent with any registration Facebook has made with any national data protection authority is going to be very tricky indeed, and if the data in question is beyond what an individual might reasonably have understood and consented to and/or if the use of the data in question is potentially damaging to the individual, that's going to be pretty much game, set and match.

Facebook need to tread carefully here, because privacy is becoming a hot political topic in many places as the backlash against excessive "security" measures and intrusive surveillance by both governments and big business grows. There are basically two ways I can see that Facebook could realistically fail catastrophically within quite a short period of time. One is the obvious: someone else does enough of the same things well enough that Facebook no longer has critical mass and people start to use alternatives routinely again instead of assuming that close enough to all of their friends and family also use Facebook; this is the fate that befell almost every other major social network as Facebook rose to supremacy. The other is to upset one national privacy body too many and find themselves legislated into impotence.

Dupe

[TechLA]

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/12/226257/facebook-your-personal-data-is-a-trade-secret

I'm really sick of this trend

[GodfatherofSoul]

If I have any sort of interaction with any company besides a pure cash transaction, somehow I'm ceding all rights to my information. I get more calls on my landline from 3rd party vendors who've purchased my profile from some company than I do from people I know. I bought a house 4 years ago and my mailbox was stuffed with targeted new homeowner fliers on the first day I opened the mailbox. I filled a prescription with an online pharmacy and now I've got people calling me trying to sell me all kinds of healthcare products. I bought one political magazine prescription (more out of pity than interest) and now I get tons of fliers and ads from special interest groups. I made a few small dollar donations ($20 range) in the last couple elections and now I have politicians from all over the country both calling and writing me for donations!

We need a privacy bill of rights. Opt-in, full disclosure, and deterrent-level fines and fees for breaking the rules.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[Desler]

You did opt-in. Did you not read the TOS? It's your own fault for not reading it fully.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[Lord Balto]

So, what? I'm supposed to go live in a cave? When you have to "opt in" in order to get a service you need, that's coersion in my book.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[Teun]

To an extend Europe already has such a privacy bill of rights .

EU nations have their individual ways of incorporating it in law but like in this Austrian case I'm quite sure it sure gives you full rights to your own data.

Yes I know it's quite shocking there are valid laws not passed by the USofA congress.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[Desler]

Because without facebook you would whither up and die, right? Oh wait, you wouldn't.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[MozeeToby]

When you have to "opt in" in order to get a service you need

Need? I won't argue that this isn't sometimes the case, the idea that you must hand over this information for basic services like your ISP or other utilities is very concerning. But this is Facebook we're talking about here. No one needs Facebook. You might want it, and it might make it easier to stay in touch with your friends and family, but you don't need it. It's up to you to weigh your personal information against the service they provide; to reiterate, you are paying for their services with your personal information.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[cparker15]

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[ackthpt]

You did opt-in. Did you not read the TOS? It's your own fault for not reading it fully.

wut?

Facebook Terms of Use

... ikpoo foobus dorsat frobnym yinfun grostnit and all your base are belong to us, hitherto shall be volpim lepsum kruften veeblefetzer potrzebie ...

Well, dang!

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[game kid]

I like that Facebook lets you create a frobnym for your own grostnit or yinfun (even if you're just a dorsat), but forcing you to put their kruften in your veeblefetzer is just cruel.

Credit agencies

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget Facebook. You agree to terms of service with them. Of course no one ever reads those terms, but at least you're agreeing to a relationship with them. I don't get the credit agencies. I have no direct relationship with the credit agencies, but they collect all this data on me and it's MY responsibility to monitor and correct it if it's wrong. And if I want to check that data more than once a year, I have to pay them for MY OWN DATA.

Re:Credit agencies

[houghi]

I read the conditions of my loan to the Corleone family. That does not make it right or legit.
That is what the law is for: if there are unreasonable things happening, the law should clear things up.

Unfortunately in many countries, the law tends to side with the companies and not the general population.

Opera Unite!

[bigsexyjoe]

I have recently become an Opera enthusiast. What do people think of using Opera Unite as an alternative to Facebook? You hold all your own data that way.

That's so utterly mad

[ackthpt]

I'd expect this being stated by one of the senior wizards at Unseen University.

Re:who fucking cares?

[hedwards]

I don't use FB, I hope you're not suggesting that I have no reason to be concerned about what FB might have on me indirectly.