CHRIS NOSEWORTHY
The Western Star
This week those of us who follow tech news and political news got treated to an example of government beauracracy at it finest. The federal office of the privacy commissioner succeeded in getting Facebook to revisit its privacy policy.
I wrote about this in a previous column, but the gist is the commish Jennifer Stoddart thought the way the social media site stored user data after it outlived its usefulness was a major violation of Canada’s privacy laws. She also found serious problems with the sometimes confusing way users were presented with privacy controls.
After rounds of discussions Facebook was very cordial and talked about how the to parties “share the same goals” and opportunities to “clarify and enhance our policies.” All that remains to be seen is exactly how this vision of increased privacy control is actually employed for Facebook’s 12 million Canadian users.
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