May 29, 2018 | less than a minute read

Facebook receive GDPR complaint on day 1

Passle

25th May 2018 has finally rolled around and it would appear that FB already have numerous complaints out against them regarding their consent policy.

Long-time Facebook privacy critic Max Schrems has argued that the social networking giant is forcing consent on its users. Or in other words, using a strong-arm tactic of 'take it or leave it'. Prior to today, FB had rolled out a workflow that offered the ‘choice’ of either deleting Facebook all together, or 'agree' to a long and wide-ranging list of scary sounding stuff.

GDPR allows for any data processing that is necessary for a service, but the use of user data beyond that (including for advertising purposes) must require free and informed consent from the user.

Here I was thinking that Facebook's core business was to 'bring the world closer together' and not to mine its userbase for advertising revenue.

“It’s simple: Anything strictly necessary for a service does not need consent boxes anymore. For everything else users must have a real choice to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” Schrems writes in a statement. “Facebook has even blocked accounts of users who have not given consent,” he adds. “In the end users only had the choice to delete the account or hit the “agree”-button — that’s not a free choice, it more reminds of a North Korean election process.”