The Federal Trade Commission has proposed changes to its 2020 privacy order with Facebook that will include a blanket prohibition that prevents Facebook from profiting from data it collects for users under 18.
Changes were proposed by the commission on May 3 to the privacy order after claiming Facebook didn’t “fully comply with the order,” a news release said.
The commission said Facebook misled parents about the control they had through the Messenger Kids app and misrepresented the access Facebook gave “some app developers to private user data.”
“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” said Samuel Levine, director of the commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in the release. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”
Along with preventing Facebook (which changed its name to Meta in October 2021) from monetizing youth data, the commission proposes that it would be required to add more protections for users and “be subject to other expanded limitations, including in its use of facial recognition technology,” the release said.
The recent proposed changes to the 2020 privacy order is the third time the Federal Trade Commission has taken action against Facebook for allegedly not protecting users’ privacy, the release said. An order was secured in 2012 that barred Facebook “from misrepresenting its privacy practices,” after the commission filed a complaint in 2011.
“But according to a subsequent complaint filed by the commission, Facebook violated the first FTC order within months of it being finalized, engaging in misrepresentations that helped fuel the Cambridge Analytica scandal,” the release said.
News media discovered in 2018 that Cambridge Analytica's business practices included the acquiring and using of personal data about Facebook users “from an external researcher who had told Facebook he was collecting it for academic purposes,” Wikipedia said.
“In 2019 Facebook agreed to a second order, which took effect in 2020, resolving claims that it violated the FTC’s first order,” the release said. “[This] action alleges Facebook has violated the 2020 order, as well as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA Rule).”
Meta has an opportunity to respond before the commission decides to modify the 2020 order, the release said.
