German government organisations have until the end of the year to close their Facebook pages after the data protection commissioner found the social network had failed to change its practices to comply with German and European privacy laws.
In a letter to government departments and agencies earlier this month, commissioner Ulrich Kelber took issue with pages for institutions, whose feed users can subscribe to by “liking” – apparently, there’s no way to run a page without having the followers’ personal data transmitted to the U.S.
“Given the continuing violation of personal data protection, there is no time to waste,” Kelber reportedly wrote to the government organisations earlier this month.
“If you have a fan page, I strongly recommend you switch it off by the end of the year.”
Kelber added that partyline app Clubhouse, video clip app TikTok and Facebook’s Instagram site also appeared to have similar shortcomings, and recommended government organisations stop using them too until his inquiry was concluded.
Forsided, 30.06.2021