Tag Archives: Facebook

This afternoon.

The Irish Data Protection Commission is imposing a fine of €17m on Facebook parent company Meta.

Via RTE News:

The decision followed an inquiry by the commission into a series of 12 data breach notifications it received in the six-month period between 7 June 2018 and 4 December 2018.

The inquiry examined the extent to which Meta Platforms complied with the requirements of GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, in relation to the processing of personal data relevant to the 12 breach notifications.

The Data Protection Commission found that Meta Platforms failed to have in place appropriate technical and organisational measures that would enable it to readily demonstrate the security measures that it implemented in practice to protect EU users’ data, in the context of the 12 personal data breaches.

Facebook fined €17m by Data Protection Commission (RTE)

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This afternoon.

The High Court, Dublin.

Via RTE News:

Ms O’Callaghan said it had been a very stressful five years. She said she was relieved she had been able to protect her own name and reputation and to make sure other Irish people would not have to go through what she had gone through.

Ms O’Callaghan took the action over the fake ads containing her image and name, falsely claiming she had left her position with RTÉ’s Prime Time programme to promote skincare products.

The ads were published on Facebook by malicious third parties, the court heard.

As part of the settlement, the court heard Facebook has made it easier for Irish users to report misleading or scam ads.

Broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan settles court action over false Facebook adverts (RTE)

Free tomorrow?

Yes, but how free?

Via Peaceful Assembly for Truth, Transparency & Free Speech:

We will be projecting the BANNED Iconoclast interview with Melissa Ciummei (which was removed from YouTube after being viewed 450K times in 6 days) onto a building near Facebook/Meta HQ, Dublin 2.

After the screening of the interview, we will take the 10 minute walk to YouTube’s office (located at Google HQ) to deliver a letter outlining our concerns.

Thanks KN

From top: Data Protection Commission office; Meta’s Dublin HQ (formerly Facebook)

This afternoon

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has denied claims that it lobbied members of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to help allow Facebook to bypass General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Via RTÉ News:

The commission has also denied it acted in bad faith by holding talks with Facebook in a manner that it has been claimed by privacy campaigners sought to subvert the procedures of the EDPB.

The developments follow allegations made against the DPC in recent days by NOYB, the organisation run by Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems.

He claimed that documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, showed the DPC tried to lobby other European data protection authorities for the adoption of a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) “bypass” approach to user data collection.

According to Mr Schrems, the “freedom of contract” approach would have allowed data controllers to put a clause into their terms and conditions, to make the harvesting of data necessary for a contract, in effect bypassing the consent requirement under GDPR.

Meanwhile…

The DPC acknowledged that the position it ultimately put forward on the issue of contract at the working group was not acceptable to many in the group and it became clear a consensus could not be built.

Anyone?

Data Protection Commission rejects Schrems’ claims on lobbying (RTÉ)

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Facebook Chief Executive Officer and founder Mark Zuckerberg in Dublin in 2019

This morning.

Via Mashable:

In an oddly short update on its engineering blog, Facebook explained the root cause of the outage that saw half the world suddenly post memes on Twitter, and the other half realize WhatsApp (another Facebook service that was down) isn’t a good backup for Messenger.

“Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt,” the post said.

The outage also had an effect on the company’s internal systems, which is why it took so long to fix it, Facebook said.

Meanwhile..

The timing of the outage was somewhat suspicious, given that it happened right after a whistleblower went public with damning info on how Facebook handles misinformation on its platform. However, Facebook is adamant that the root cause of the outage is the misconfiguration issue detailed above.

Finally, Facebook said it has no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime.

Facebook apologizes for that massive outage, says no user data was compromised (Mashable)

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This afternoon.

The US Senate.

In a contentious hearing, the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter, from top: Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey were questioned by Senators over their content moderation policies.

Via CNN:

[Republican Senator] Ted Cruz angrily went after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, pressing him on the platform’s decision to restrict content posted by the New York Post. He concluded by shouting at Dorsey: “Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear, and why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?”

And take off the damn nose ring.

It’s not Coachella, you shadow-banning spanner.

CEOs of Google, Twitter and Facebook grilled in Senate hearing (CNN)

From top: Facebook HQ, Dublin; Privacy activist Max Schrems outside the High Court, Dublin in 2015

This morning.

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Privacy Shield, the EU-US data protection agreement, is invalid.

Via RTÉ:

The case was referred to the European court by Ireland’s High Court.

It began as a 2015 complaint to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, made by Austrian activist Max Schrems (see below).

The outcome could potentially have major implications for the way technology companies handle European citizens’ data.

It specifically relates to the personal data Facebook holds on its European users, which the company sends to its US-based data centres.

However, the ruling could impact any company that sends user data to the US or potentially any other country outside of the EU.

The Privacy Shield framework established between the EU and US was designed to allow data transfers between the two jurisdictions.

EU court rules EU-US data protection agreement invalid (RTE)

Privacy activist and party to the case Max Schrems says:

“I am very happy about the judgment. At first sight it seems the Court has followed us in all aspects.

This is a total blow to the Irish Data protection Commissioner (DPC) and Facebook. It is clear that the US will have to seriously change their surveillance laws, if US companies want to continue to play a role on the EU market.”

The Court clarified for a second time now that there is a clash of EU privacy law and US surveillance law. As the EU will not change its fundamental rights to please the NSA, the only way to overcome this clash is for the US to introduce solid privacy rights for all people – including foreigners.

Surveillance reform thereby becomes crucial for the business interests of Silicon Valley.

This judgment is not the cause of a limit to data transfers, but the consequence of US surveillance laws. You can’t blame the Court to say the unavoidable – when shit hits the fan, you can’t blame the fan.”

CJEU invalidates “Privacy Shield” in US Surveillance case (nypob.eu)

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