Facebook Updates Privacy Terms To Comply With New EU Data Laws

Facebook has introduced new privacy experiences for everyone on the social media site as part of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“Everyone – no matter where they live – will be asked to review important information about how Facebook uses data and make choices about their privacy on Facebook. We’ll begin by rolling these choices out in Europe this week,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We’ve brought together hundreds of employees across product, engineering, legal, policy, design and research teams. We’ve also sought input from people outside Facebook with different perspectives on privacy, including people who use our services, regulators and government officials, privacy experts and designers.”

Some of the factors users will be asked to review include information about the data used by the site from partners, including websites and apps that use business tools such as the Like button. Users also need to decide whether they want to continue to share their political, religious and relationship information on their profiles, and whether they want to use the site’s facial recognition.

There will be special consideration placed on teen users, with the site revealing it has built many special protections for this age group, regardless of location. Advertising categories for teens are more limited, and their default audience options for posts do not include “public.” Face recognition has also been turned off for anyone under age 18, and there are limits on who can see or search specific information teens have shared, such as hometowns or birthdays.

In addition, everyone will be asked to review and agree to Facebook’s updated terms of service and data policy, which includes more detail about the site’s services.

“We’re not asking for new rights to collect, use or share your data on Facebook, and we continue to commit that we do not sell information about you to advertisers or other partners,” the company added. “While the substance of our data policy is the same globally, people in the EU will see specific details relevant only to people who live there, like how to contact our Data Protection Officer under GDPR. We want to be clear that there is nothing different about the controls and protections we offer around the world.”

People in the EU will start seeing these requests this week, well ahead of GDPR coming into effect on May 25. Users in the rest of the world will start to see them on a slightly later schedule.