Germany bans Facebook for institutions
Why German ministries must close their Facebook pages by the end of the year. All the details
In Germany, ministries will have to close their Facebook pages.
The German federal authorities must deactivate Facebook fan pages by the end of the year. The German Data Protection Supervisor asked Tuesday, as revealed by Reuters . According to the authority, user data is automatically transferred to the United States, just like Instagram.
The official Facebook page of the German government has over one million followers. The platform founded by Mark Zuckerberg has become an increasingly important tool for reaching citizens. But the issue of the transfer of personal data to the United States is a priority for the German authority.
In fact, last July the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the Privacy Shield, a legal framework that regulates the transfers of personal data from the EU to the US.
At the same time, the Court held that the standard contractual clauses (SCCs), an alternative legal mechanism for the transfer of data from the EU to a third country, continue to be valid.
Therefore, sensitive data of European citizens can only leave the EU for a jurisdiction with equally strict data protection rules, which is not recognized by the United States.
All the details.
THE DIKTAT OF THE GERMAN PRIVACY COMMISSIONER
German government organizations have until the end of the year to close their Facebook pages.
In a letter to government departments and agencies earlier this month, Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber said the Facebook group failed to change its practices to comply with German and European privacy laws.
WARRANTIES NOT OBTAINED
The government press office had attempted to obtain additional guarantees from Facebook. However, the US company failed to supply them, Kelber added.
“Given the continuing breach of personal data protection, there is no time to waste,” Kelber wrote to government organizations. "If you have a fan page, I highly recommend closing it by the end of the year."
THE REPLICA OF FACEBOOK
“We updated our Page Insights supplement and clarified the responsibility of Facebook and website operators at the end of 2019,” a Facebook spokesperson wrote in an email. "We have considered issues related to the transparency of data processing".
WHAT THE MENLO PARK GROUP RISKS
But for Facebook it is not worth the tug-of-war with Berlin.
If the institutions do not follow the commissioner's "recommendation", the latter will use the remedies to which he is entitled under Article 58 of the Gdpr. Among other things, there is talk of financial penalties, including the prohibition of data processing or their transmission to a recipient in a third country.
THE ISSUE OF THE TRANSFER OF PERSONAL DATA
The official German government page on Facebook has more than a million subscribers and the platform has become an increasingly important means of communication for the executive. But Ulrich Kelber believes it is impossible to manage such a page without users' personal data being transmitted to the United States. Under current legislation, personal data can only leave the EU for a jurisdiction with equally stringent data protection rules and this is not the case in the United States.
NOTICE ALSO TO CLUBHOUSE, TIKTOK AND INSTAGRAM
But Facebook isn't the only one staying on high alert.
Commissioner Kelber added that the Clubhouse , TikTok and Instagram (owned by Facebook) apps also appear to have similar shortcomings. Therefore, he recommended that government organizations stop using them until his investigation is concluded.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/la-germania-mette-al-bando-facebook-per-le-istituzioni/ on Wed, 30 Jun 2021 12:57:58 +0000.