Facebook taken to court by Belgium over privacy breach claims

The Belgian Commission for Privacy Protection (CPP) is claiming that Facebook is monitoring the web movements of both users and non-users through plug-ins and cookies and gathering information about their browsing habits. It has also asked the court to ban Facebook from monitoring these movements with immediate effect. Facebook and the CPP were set to meet on the 19th of June in order to discuss the Belgian commission’s concerns about Facebook breaching privacy law, and the claim by the CPP came as a surprise.

The Belgian commission took the social media giant to court over these claims, despite the official meeting being set to happen soon, as it claimed that Facebook failed to issue adequate answers to certain questions which the CPP had posed the previous month. Furthermore, German, Dutch, French and Spanish authorities are also working alongside the CPP on this case.

Facebook defended itself by stating that the use of cookies has been an industry standard for the last 15 years and that CPP stated this in its own report released in May. Furthermore, despite the Belgian case not having merit according to Facebook, the organisation would still be more than willing to communicate with the Belgian commission through Facebook Ireland and the Irish Data Protection Commission, the European regulator by which Facebook is regulated.

For further information about how GVZH Advocates can help you with your Data Protection and/or Right to Privacy requirements kindly contact us here.