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Facebook Sued Over Privacy

2010-07-08 11:41 by
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Facebook, whose privacy policies have come under attack both at home and abroad, now faces a stiff fine from Germany's Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information for storing non-users' personal data without their permission.

The concern arises when Facebook accountholders use the site's invitation and address book sync features to upload data about non-users, then Facebook stores this data. Since some of these individuals do not belong to Facebook, at no time have they granted permission for the site to use or save private data - such as phone numbers and e-mail addresses, the Hamburg commissioner said.

"We consider the saving of data from third parties, in this context, to be against data privacy laws," said Johannes Caspar, head of the Hamburg office for data protection, in a statement.

The legal action could result in a fine of tens of thousands of Euros, he said. "Many" people were contacted by Facebook after the site received their names and e-mail information from friends or colleagues on the social networking site, Caspar told the Associated Press. He declined to provide an exact number of complainants.

Read more -here-

 

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