Facebook fined €1.2 mn by Spanish data watchdog
Spain’s data protection watchdog said Monday it has slapped Facebook with a fine of 1.2 million euros ($1.44 million) for failing to prevent its users’ data being accessed by advertisers.
According to the Spanish Data Protection Agency in a statement, Facebook has collected personal data from its users in Spain without obtaining their “unequivocal consent” and without informing them how such information would be used.
“Facebook collects data on ideology, sex, religious beliefs, personal tastes or navigation without clearly informing about the use and purpose that it will give them,” the statement said.
The watchdog said Facebook’s privacy policy “contains generic and unclear terms” and it “does not adequately collect the consent of either its users or nonusers, which constitutes a serious infringement” of data protection rules.
The agency said Facebook did not remove the personal data which it collects from its data base even when a user requests this.
It said it fined the company 600,000 euros for a very serious violation of the country’s data protection rules and 300,000 euros each for two serious violations.
The 1.2-million-euro fine is small in the context of the company which posted advertising revenues of $9.2 billion in the second quarter, mainly from mobile video ad sales.
Facebook said in a statement that it “respectfully” disagreed with the watchdog’s ruling, which it intended to appeal.
“As we made clear to the data protection agency, users choose which information they want to add to their profile and share with others, such as their religion. However, we do not use this information to target adverts to people,” it said.
Source: Guardian
Comments
Post a Comment