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Facebook to meet with UK's 'privacy police'

Mike Butcher

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Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

Friday, January 18th, 2008
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The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office is to enter into discussions with Facebook how users can maintain their privacy and control their data.

The news from the BBC relates to a story broken by Channel 4 News last November detailing how Facebook was being investigated by the ICO after a complaint that he could not remove his account or any of the data – photos, wall posts etc – associated with it. The ICO oversees the implementation of the Data Protection Act.

Dave Evans, Senior Data Protection Practice Manager at the ICO said: “We’ve agreed with Facebook to discuss with them issues around what they do with my information if I wish to deactivate my account”. In addition, he said that the ICO would look at Facebook’s privacy policy, the rights to data the company asserts and the privacy implications of applications embedded in Facebook.

The implications for Facbook are serious but, in theory, unlikely to affect its meteoric growth in the UK.

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  • http://www.broadstuff.com alan p

    There is now also a growing number of people like us who have been thrown off Facebook, we need to check the status of our disabled accounts as well.

  • http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/02/19/facebook-improves-account-deletion/ TechCrunch UK » Blog Archive » Facebook improves account deletion

    [...] Information Commissioner’s Office may be feeling a little more satisfied today. Last month it entered into discussions with Facebook about how users can maintain their privacy and control their data, in particular, [...]

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