Facebook “tramples” on privacy laws in Europe by tracking people online without their consent, Belgium’s privacy watchdog has claimed.

In a report, the country’s Privacy Protection Commission (CPVP/CBPL) said the social network also dodged questions from national regulators about how data was collected, and has urged internet users to install privacy software in order to shield themselves from the site’s tracking systems – even if they don’t have an account with Facebook.

(Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The attack comes as part of a report in cooperation with watchdogs in Germany, Holland, France, and Spain. It says that the US technology giant had refused to recognise EU national jurisdictions, instead saying it was only subject to law in Ireland, where Facebook has its European headquarters.

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“Facebook tramples on European and Belgian privacy laws,” said the Commission.

“Facebook has shown itself particularly miserly in giving precise answers,” adding that the results of the report were “disconcerting”.

The social network responded to the report in a statement, which said: “We work hard to make sure people have control over what they share and with whom.

(Richard Drew/AP)

“Facebook is already regulated in Europe and complies with European data protection law, so the applicability of the CBPL’s efforts is unclear.”

However, the social media site added that it would review the Commission’s recommendations with the Irish data protection commissioner.

The report comes in the wake of the European Commission announcing an investigation into Google for alleged anti-competitive behaviour, with allegations that the search engine promotes its own services, such as YouTube and Google Play Music, above those of rivals in results pages.

(Virginia Mayo/AP)

Though the Belgian Commission does not have the power to levy any fines against Facebook, the attack is another example, along with the Google investigation, of a growing EU demand that large US technology companies do more to abide by European laws.

Last year the EU forced Google into changing its privacy policy in Europe following the “right to be forgotten” ruling, with the internet giant having to create a submissions page for users who wanted to request links to old stories be removed from search results about them. However a recently published Google Transparency Report showed that more than 58% of the take down requests had been rejected.