Posted by Michael de Andrade.
A threat to European nations, Facebook is being seen as a social media giant who are stripping Europeans from their freedom. Facebook is being accused of “collecting digital information about people who are not its users,” by the Belgian Court’s. Many of the “Continent’s data watchdogs,” including the European Court of Justice, have been giving Facebook and other American technology companies a difficult time for the way they “gain access to, manage and use people’s digital information” because to these European “watchdogs,” Facebook is violating Europe’s strict data protection rules that preserves individual’s privacy to the same power as the “fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression.
The hearing was held in Brussels, Belgium on Monday, November 9th, where Facebook was denied the ability to “collect and store online information from people in Belgium who do not have an account with the social network” stating that Facebook did not have “individuals’ consent to gather the information.” With this decision, the Belgian Court took further action by stating that if Facebook fails to comply with the court’s decision, they’ll receive a “daily fine worth up to $270,000.” Facebook didn’t settle and in response they stated that they have used “cookies for more than five years without facing privacy complaints,” and that they are going to appeal the decision to the Belgian Court of Appeal. As the wait continues, Facebook is being further investigated by five European privacy regulators, which are from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, to see whether or not the “company’s new privacy conditions run afoul of their countries’ domestic data protection rules.”
In the end, Facebook is trying to combat these accusations by stating that only the Irish data protection authority has jurisdiction over its new privacy conditions because Facebook’s international headquarters are in Dublin. The position grew vastly in the last month after the European Court of Justice “gave national authorities greater powers over how companies like Facebook and Google store online data.” Facebook will continue to fight for what they believe are their rights, despite the judges’ ruling that the United States do not offer sufficient protection for Europeans if their data was misused by companies or by government agencies. The issue is still recently new and there are many situations yet to be settled.
Michael is a sports management major at the Stillman School of Business, Class of 2018.