German DPA tells ministries to shut Facebook pages
German government organisations have until the end of the year to close their Facebook pages after the data protection commissioner found the social network had failed to change its practices to comply with German and European privacy laws.
In a letter to government departments and agencies earlier this month, commissioner Ulrich Kelber said Facebook had provided no way to run pages for institutions, whose feed users can subscribe to by clicking “like”, in an EU-compliant way.
“Given the continuing violation of personal data protection, there is no time to waste,” Kelber wrote to the government organisations. “If you have a fan page, I strongly recommend you switch it off by the end of the year.”
Source: German privacy tsar tells ministries to shut Facebook pages | Reuters
