May 4, 2023
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged Facebook with failing to comply with a 2020 privacy order, disclosing that it has given app developers access to users’ private information, causing additional harm.
According to the FTC, Facebook’s Messenger Kids program mislead parents by misrepresenting who could communicate with kids and who had access to juvenile data. As a result, the FTC has recommended revisions to the 2020 order, including a prohibition on Facebook owner Meta from launching new products without formal FTC compliance confirmation. It also dished out a prohibition on monetizing any youth data it obtains across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Meta was also given 30 days to reply to the proposed amendments.
Facebook is also accused of violating the FTC Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule, according to the FTC. In reaction, Samuel Levine, head of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, declared that “the company’s recklessness has put young users at risk,” and that “Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”
The FTC then proposed new restrictions on Meta’s use of face recognition technology, as well as the expansion of the 2020 order’s compliance requirements to include all firms amalgamated under Meta.
The sources for this piece include articles in ArsTechnica and Reuters.
