The Federal Trade Commission today announced its intent to impose dramatic brand-new limits on the personal information practices of Meta (previously Facebook), including a ban on monetizing the data of children and limitations on the business’s usage of facial acknowledgment technology.
The proposed action, which would modify an existing FTC order against Meta arising from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, is based on findings that Meta “failed to completely abide by the order, misguided parents about their ability to control with whom their children communicated through its Messenger Children app, and misrepresented the access it provided some app designers to private user information.”
If completed, the revised order would limit Meta’s use of minors’ personal information exclusively to offering its service and security functions; restrict Meta from launching brand-new products or features “till it can demonstrate … that its privacy program totally complies with the Order and has no material gaps or weak points”; extend restrictions on Meta’s usage of facial acknowledgment innovation; and impose extra personal privacy and security safeguards.
“We have seen time and again that Meta and other Huge Tech companies have actually broken their personal privacy guarantees and failed to satisfy their responsibilities to users, consisting of children who are particularly at danger of adjustment and abuse,” stated legendary Executive Director Alan Butler. “It is important that the Federal Trade Commission vigorously implement its orders and hold these business to account when they fail to secure the privacy of their users. And we understand that even incredibly large fines are insufficient to stop information abuses where there are profits to be made. Meta has actually had more than a decade to clean up its act, but even after a $5 billion fine, it continues to break its users’ privacy.That is why it is essential for the Commission to be proactive and guarantee that these violent organization practices are stopped.”
Impressive has long fought to safeguard the privacyof social networks users, particularly users of Facebook and Meta. In 2009, EPIC and coalition partners brought an FTC problem worrying Facebook’s privacy settings that resulted in the Commission’s first consent decree with Facebook. Legendary filed various FTC complaints targeting Facebook’s violent information practices in the years after and challenged the insufficiency of the Commission’s 2019 consent decree in federal court.