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Germany: Court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

By  |  February 12, 2018

A German consumer rights group announced that a court had found Facebook’s use of personal data to be illegal because the US social media platform did not adequately secure the informed consent of its users.

The verdict, from a Berlin regional court, comes as various Big Tech companies face increasing scrutiny in Germany over the handling of sensitive personal data that enables micro-target online advertising.

The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzvb) said that Facebook’s default settings and some of its terms of service were in breach of consumer law, and that the court had found parts of the consent to data usage to be invalid.

“Facebook hides default settings that are not privacy-friendly in its privacy centre and does not provide sufficient information about this when users register,” said the federation’s litigation policy officer Heiko Dünkel.  “This does not meet the requirement for informed consent.”

The tech giant stores information that a person has shared on their profile, through their activity on the website but also their web history while browsing other websites.

Full Content: The Telegraph

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