Despite deadline slip, DPC ‘happy’ with Facebook’s privacy progress

3 Apr 2012

Although Facebook has slipped beyond an end-of-March deadline for meeting many of the conditions set down by the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) in December, the DPC says it is satisfied that ‘significant progress’ is being made.

In December, following an audit that arose from 22 complaints lodged by Austrian lobby group Europe Versus Facebook, the DPC and Facebook agreed to ‘best practice’ improvements to be implemented over six months, with a formal review happening in July 2012.

Some of the conditions such as simplified language, access to users’ own data and transparency were to be implemented by March.

However, according to the Europe Versus Facebook group these condition haven’t been met and that it will now take Facebook to the European Commission.

However, the Data Protection Commission told Siliconrepublic.com: “Basically at the moment we are quite happy with the progress Facebook is making.

“We are engaged in ongoing communications with Facebook Ireland on all the conditions in the audit and we feel significant progress is continuing at a great rate.

“A full review of what was set out in audit will be published in July,” a spokesperson said.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com