‘Serious privacy gaps’ seen in Facebook

OTTAWA – Canada’s privacy commissioner last week said Facebook has “serious privacy gaps” and needs to improve its policies to protect sensitive information, Bloomberg News reported.
Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart made the comments as she released a report outlining the social networking site’s privacy issues and gave its privately-held parent company, Facebook Inc., 30 days to respond.
“Facebook must make some changes to its site to bring it into compliance with Canadian privacy law,” Stoddart told reporters in Ottawa, adding that she thought Facebook executives were taking the report seriously.
Among other issues, the report singled out Facebook’s lack of “adequate safeguards” to keep third-party developers from accessing users profiles and its policy of storing users’ information even if they delete their accounts.
In a statement, the company said: “Facebook will soon be introducing a number of new additional privacy features to its service that we believe will keep the site at the forefront of user privacy and address any remaining concerns the Commission may have.”
Facebook announced last week that more than 250 million people worldwide have now created accounts on the site. It was unclear if the new features would be available to users outside of Canada, where Facebook has almost 12 million users, according to Bloomberg.
“All of us – social networking sites, users and data protection authorities – are only beginning to develop the appropriate rules of engagement in this new world of online communication,” Assistant Commissioner Elizabeth Denham wrote in the report. “The findings of our Facebook investigation are an important contribution to the development of these rules.”