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Facebook's privacy officials warn that the company would have a hard time complying with data protection laws because it largely has no idea how its system uses the data it collects.
As regulators around the world become increasingly strict about the way companies collect and process user data, many are considering how to operate with more restrictive policies. But Facebook will have a much tougher time than most. As it turns out, the company cannot say where its user data comes from and where it is stored. A internal document, the Engadget leaked sheds light on the situation. Facebook's privacy officials write that the company has no real way to track the data it collects. Instead, the social media platform's "open border" systems collect and consolidate user data from a variety of first- and third-party sources. Once the data is consolidated, there is no way to determine whether it explicitly came from Facebook or not. The report goes on to say that this would make changing the policy nearly impossible.
Facebook is working on “privacy-friendly” advertising technologies
We lack sufficient control and explainability over how our systems use data, and therefore cannot make controlled policy changes or external commitments like "we will not use X data for Y purposes." Yet this is precisely what regulators expect of us, increasing the risk of errors and misrepresentations.
The company's privacy team has presented a plan to tag data with the Purpose Policy Framework (PPF), meaning it will be labeled as created on Facebook, to maintain control over that data. This will require the company to route "tens of thousands" of uncontrolled data inputs into a "choke point." There, the data will be tagged with the PPF policy, allowing Facebook to closely monitor the user data for which it is responsible. In August, Facebook announced that it would be transitioning to a "privacy-preserving" technology for creating targeted ads. The company is reportedly working on a system that delivers personalized ads without requiring data about individual users. (Photo by sergei_elagin / Bigstockphoto)
