Data watchdog to check Facebook bug
Ministers want to know if network users' private data has been leaked - and what company is going to do about it
FRANCE'S data watchdog has been asked to investigate claims that Facebook users are finding their privacy compromised as old private messages suddenly appear on open view to others.
Two ministers, Arnaud Montebourg, for industrial renewal, and digital economy minister Fleur Pellerin, demanded that the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (Cnil) get an explanation from Facebook on what was happening and if there was a bug in the system.
They said that they had been in touch with Facebook France themselves after receiving complaints that private data was no longer confidential.
Facebook has denied there is a bug saying that users had simply seen older postings appear on their Wall on their Timeline.
It said: "A small number of users raised concerns after what they mistakenly believed to be private messages appeared on their Timeline. Our engineers investigated these reports and found that the messages were older wall posts that had always been visible on the users' profile pages. Facebook is satisfied that there has been no breach of user privacy."
The Timeline feature has recently been introduced in France and one of its features is making old material available. Some users have protested against it because of this.
The two ministers said that it was not clear if the information was simply being presented in a different way or if there was a real breach in confidentiality.
They added that the problem "underlined yet again the importance of the protection of personal data in the digital world and the lack of transparency in the treatment of this data by a group like Facebook".
On September 21 Facebook introduced a new feature called Activity Log, where users can review and manage their activity on the network.
