Facebook says it will not extend GDPR privacy protections beyond EU

Facebook has no plans to extend the user privacy protections established by the General Data Protection Regulation Act, or GDPR, to users of its social network worldwide, according to Reuters . The general manager, Mark Zuckerberg, told the news agency in an interview that Facebook would like to make such guarantees of privacy "in spirit", but would make exceptions. Zuckerberg refused to explain those exceptions, according to Reuters .

"We continue to clarify details about this, but it must be directionally, in spirit, everything," Zuckerberg said that the GDPR Facebook protections would not apply worldwide. He added that many of the protections provided by the GDPR are already part of his company's privacy settings, including the option to remove all user data through the termination of the account. The executive director is currently handling the consequences of the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, which saw some 50 million Facebook user profiles accessed by the data mining company related to Trump in violation of the terms of service. of the company.

The effects of the scandal have been staggering, with Facebook making substantial changes in its advertising practices and the permissions it gives developers of third-party applications that operate on its platform. Still, it does not appear that Facebook is ready or willing to take such severe measures as required by the GDPR and apply them to dozens and dozens of other countries in which it operates, including the US. UU

The GDPR was approved in the EU in 2016, but companies have until this month of May to fulfill the request. In effect, the GDPR requires the robust and unprecedented consent of the user of the companies that wish to collect data through the Internet with a product or service. Not only that, but users must be given a way to revoke that consent, as well as a way to request access to any information collected as a way to verify the consent granted.

Violations of this rule will result in massive fines of up to $ 20 million or 4 percent of a company's overall turnover, resulting in a larger sum. Although the GDPR only applies to EU citizens, it is having a drastic effect on how US companies conduct business overseas, specifically how these companies handle the data of EU citizens even when they are not stored on servers based In the EU.

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