After weeks of scathing criticism over misuse of user data, Facebook is rolling out tougher privacy controls. that were forced on it by the European Union to, all 2 billion of its active users worldwide.
“Today we’re introducing new privacy experiences for everyone on Facebook as part of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including updates to our terms and data policy,” wrote Facebook’s Erin Egan, VP and Chief Privacy Officer, Policy and Ashlie Beringer, VP and Deputy General Counsel in a blog post on Tuesday. “Everyone – no matter where they live – will be asked to review important information about how Facebook uses data and make choices about their privacy on Facebook.”
Facebook will begin rolling these choices out in Europe this week, with other countries to follow.
Facebook will ask users to make choices about:
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Ads based on data from partners. “Ads on Facebook are more relevant when we use data from partners, like websites and apps that use business tools such as our Like button. We’ll ask people to review information about this type of advertising, and to choose whether or not they want us to use data from partners to show them ads.”
- Information in their profile. “If you’ve chosen to share political, religious, and relationship information on your profile, we’ll ask you to choose whether to continue sharing and letting us use this information. As always, including this information on your profile is completely optional. We’re making it easier for people to delete it if they no longer want to share it.”
- Allowing face recognition technology. “Our face recognition features help protect your privacy and improve your experiences, like detecting when others might be attempting to use your image as their profile picture and allowing us to suggest friends you may want to tag in photos or videos. We’ve offered products using face recognition in most of the world for more than six years. As part of this update, we’re now giving people in the EU and Canada the choice to turn on face recognition. Using face recognition is entirely optional for anyone on Facebook.”