Ever since Facebook has decided to keep users information even if they cancel their account I have heard of people complaining about it. No one wants a company especially an online social media company keeping their information, especially if they canceled their account. So this isn’t really news to me because I knew that it would be against the law in once country or another.
Facebook has been facing some heat in Canada for violation of that country’s privacy laws, and tomorrow the Canadian privacy commissioner will announce what the social networking company will be doing to address those concerns.
The issue surrounds retention of customer data even after a user cancels his or her account, which the Canadian privacy commission claims violates the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
There are also apparently concerns regarding how Facebook () shares user information with third parties, particularly the now almost one million software developers making use of the Facebook application platform.
Though there’s no word yet on what exactly Facebook will do to address the privacy concerns, what is revealed at tomorrow’s press conference could have wider implications for other social networks and services surrounding privacy standards and the usage of customer data. Tamir Israel of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic said he also expects those changes to extend beyond Canadian borders as well and to possibly be implemented Facebook-wide.
Facebook has also informed us they’ll be doing a follow-up after tomorrow’s announcements:
“We will be having a media call tomorrow following the Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s press conference. The call will be tomorrow (August 27) at 11:30 AM EDT.”
We should know by later today if they decided to uphold the law in Canada or not. I for one am not a fan of facebook keeping information after someone cancels their account. There are other issues that people have with facebook like to sharing of information to third party developers. Hopefully these issues ill be squared away sometime in the short future. I am a huge fan of social media but people need to rise up and challenge these companies if there is something wrong in the way that they conduct their business. I applaud you Canada!
John Botch
Laserburnmedia.com
john@laserburnmedia.com
