Privacy commissioner wants federal court to declare Facebook broke federal privacy law

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In this Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019, photo an iPhone displays a Facebook page in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

OTTAWA -- The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has filed a notice of application in the federal court, calling for a declaration that Facebook contravened federal privacy law.

This comes after a joint investigation by the federal and British Columbia privacy watchdogs probed the tech giant's role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal and found that the major social networking company's privacy practices had "major shortcomings."

That investigation found that Facebook allowed users personal information to be used for political purposes, and recommended changes to further strengthen Canada's privacy regime.

In a press release announcing the move—the initial step in a formal legal proceeding before the court—Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien's office says the application asks the court to take several measures, including declaring that Facebook contravened the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

The commissioner also wants the federal court to require Facebook to implement measures to obtain meaningful consent from all users; declare what internal changes have been made to comply with the federal private sector privacy law; and ordering Facebook to be prohibited from further collecting and disclosing personal information in ways that contravene PIPEDA; and forcing Facebook to publish a notice of any action it has taken to correct the practices that the commissioner's office has deemed to be breaking the law.

"The Federal Court has, among other powers, the authority to impose binding orders requiring an organization to correct or change its practices and comply with the law," says the commissioner's statement.

From the commissioner's perspective Facebook has "refused to implement recommendations to address the deficiencies identified."

Though, in a statement a Facebook spokesperson said that the social media company has made "many attempts to work with them and offer measures that would go above and beyond what other companies do."

"We look forward to defending the many proactive and robust improvements we've made to our platform to better protect people’s personal information," the spokesperson said.

Facebook has argued that it has taken steps to shore up its personal data protections, including by limiting third-party app access and seeking to increase user awareness about their ability to revoke apps' permissions to their information.

RELATED IMAGES Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Sept. 21, 2017. (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)