Students hope media attention will hasten Facebook investigations

A group of Canadian law students who recently launched a complaint against Facebook are hoping media interest in the story will spur a quick investigation by the privacy commissioner.The 35-page complaint to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, lodged late last month by students at the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa, alleges the popular social networking site violates Canadian privacy laws.Students at CIPPIC outlined 21 violations under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). These include Facebook's alleged failure to safeguard personal information after users shut down their accounts, allowing third party applications to share private information, allowing unauthorized access, and failing to provide consent for opting out. Facebook has denied the claims, saying there are serious factual errors in the CIPPIC complaint.Legally, the privacy commissioner has up to a year to investigate the claims, but Lisa Feinberg, one of the students who launched the complaint, says CIPPIC is hoping the wide media coverage will trigger a quicker investigation."This certainly generated a lot of interest because Facebook is quite popular in this country," she says.However, Teresa Scassa, Canada Research Chair in information law at the University of Ottawa, says the complaint is likely lodged in a queue of many investigations, and that CIPPIC still has some waiting to do."For a complaint as big and complex like this, there's just a question of where it is in the queue and how quickly they can get to it. It's going to take a lot of time to work through," she says.Anne-Marie Hayden from the private commissioner's office declined to say when the commissioner is likely to complete investigations into the case, noting that investigations are underway.In the course of investigating claims, the privacy commissioner determines if the claims are well founded and issues recommendations, which are not binding unless pursued in a court of law, says Finberg. A court case has to be filed 45 days after the privacy commissioner releases the recommendations, but Feinberg says CIPPIC is not looking to face Facebook lawyers in court."Our intention is to make this a public complaint," says Feinberg.Scassa says the case will be an interesting one to watch because the complaints are wide-ranging and involve privacy issues on the Internet.Facebook has an estimated 70 million users worldwide, including 7 million in Canada.

Students hope media attention will hasten Facebook investigations

News | 06/27/2008 2:23 pm EDT

To keep reading, get a free trial.

Already a Subscriber?

Reuse & Permissions

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us