[LINK] "Facebook violates Canadian privacy law: watchdog"

[rfmcdonald]

The Canadian Press' Jim Bronskill has the story.

Canada's privacy watchdog says Internet phenomenon Facebook breaches the law by keeping users' personal information indefinitely - even after members close their accounts.

Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart says the popular social networking site should hang on to the data only for as long as truly necessary.

In a report Thursday, Stoddart urged Facebook to remedy the problem, one of several serious privacy shortfalls she discovered.

Facebook, which has nearly 12 million Canadian users, allows people to keep in touch with friends and family by updating their personal pages with fresh messages and photos.

Stoddart said although Facebook provides information about its privacy practices, it is often confusing or incomplete.

"It's clear that privacy issues are top of mind for Facebook, and yet we found serious privacy gaps in the way the site operates," Stoddart said in a statement.

For example, the "account settings" page describes how to deactivate accounts but not how to delete them, which actually removes personal data from Facebook's computer servers.

[. . .]

The privacy commissioner will review Facebook's actions after 30 days to gauge progress. She can take the case to the Federal Court of Canada to have her recommendations enforced.

She launched a probe of Facebook in response to a complaint last year from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

The clinic, based at the University of Ottawa's law faculty, alleged numerous violations by the high-profile site.

David T.S. Fraser goes into more detail at his Privacy Lawyer blog.