The Dutch government may shut down its official Facebook pages if it doesn’t get the answers and action it wants on how the social media platform handles personal data of people who use the pages to interact with officials.
Dutch parliament members were told in a briefing that the government had last year asked its privacy watchdog for recommendations on how to safeguard the privacy of citizens using the pages. The request came after a year of talks with Facebook and its parent Meta, which were not willing to change how it handles that data.
After an investigation, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, or Data Protection Authority, concluded that the best solution would be to shut them down, at least until the company ‘comes clean’ on how it processes personal data. The minister giving the briefing told legislators that “We don’t know if companies like Meta ask for permission to process data properly and this means the ministry may not be in line with government regulations.”
The chair of the Data Protection Authority said “People who visit a government page should be able to have confidence that their personal and sensitive data is in good hands. This is even more important because we are talking about information about children and teenagers, who are vulnerable online and need extra protection.”
The questions arose after a Dutch court ruled that Facebook had illegally used personal information of people residing in the Netherlands for advertising and other purposes and had shared it with other companies.
There will now be a new attempt at discussions with Facebook based on the Data Protection Authority report before a final decision.
