John Edwards, New Zealand’s privacy commissioner has deleted his Facebook account on Wednesday accusing it of breaking the country’s privacy laws, by declining a citizen access to personal information held on the accounts of other users.
Edwards said that Facebook broke the law by not releasing information to a man who wanted to know what others were saying about him on the social network. After being notified of its complaint, Facebook responded that it did not have to comply with the body’s demand for the information.
The commissioner said“considers it necessary to publicly identify Facebook in order to highlight its demonstrated unwillingness to comply with the law, and to inform the New Zealand public of Facebook’s position.”
Facebook did not respond immediately to an emailed request for comment.
The commissioner’s statement said “the social media company said the Privacy Act did not apply to it and it did not have to comply with the Commissioner’s request to review the information requested by the complainant.”
Facebook said Edwards had made a “broad and intrusive” request for private data, and that the company was protecting its users.
“We are disappointed that the New Zealand privacy commissioner asked us to provide access to a year’s worth of private data belonging to several people and then criticized us for protecting their privacy,” the company said in a statement.
The case also raises jurisdictional questions. Edwards said Facebook should comply by New Zealand laws but the company was arguing it’s not bound by them because its operation is based in Ireland.
The company said it had investigated the man’s complaint but hadn’t got enough detail to resolve it. Facebook said it scrutinized all requests to disclose personal data, particularly the contents of private messages, and would continue to challenge those that were too broad.
“We have a long history of working with the commissioner, and we will continue to request information that will help us investigate this complaint further,” the company said.
>Juthy Saha
Facebook Charged with Breaking New Zealand Privacy Law
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