German Official: Facebook Must Delete Faces

The German version of Facebook = Der Book.

A German data protection official called Wednesday for social networking site Facebook to delete biometric profiles of people stored without their explicit consent, saying they breach European privacy rules. In other words, he wants Facebook to delete users' faces from its databases.

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Das Buch :-P

Kein Gesicht auf dem Buch!

When I read the title of the thread I was like, "*squeeee!* They're finally shutting Facebook down in at least one nation on the planet!" but then I realized that it was faces and not feces and I was all about it. On top of that, it's just one person in Genmay that's pushing to get their probe stuffed into Facebook again:

Johannes Caspar says he is now re-opening a stalled probe of the Menlo Park, California-based company "in order to find a legally sound solution with regard to the use of biometric data" that he says can be used to automatically identify individuals.

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It's my unqualified opinion that there should be more nationwide probing of Zuckerberg and his company.

I'm glad to see that at least in Europe they are taking privacy concerns seriously. I usually feel alone here in my concerns regarding Google and others collecting and distributing all information about you. I just don't like that I can google my neighbors and see how much their house cost or how much tax they are paying or see the unintended geo-location of photos or how easy it is to find a source of a single image or soon surely you'll be able to Google all pictures that include someone's face you picked off of Facebook with facial recognition software.

SkribbelKat said:

It's my unqualified opinion that there should be more nationwide probing of Zuckerberg and his company.

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At least eight inches worth.

So itll be what? Blurbook.com? NoFaceBook.com? Or... HeadlessTorsoBook.com?

Can we just delete Facebook instead?

Zee German's?

TechLarry said:

Can we just delete Facebook instead?

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thats the point- those of us who dont have, or have since deleted, their facebook accounts dont want their personal info stored on facebook.

i dont have a facebook account, but im sure my face is all over it due to my friends posting all sorts of unnecessary pictures and possibly even tagging my name with it.

their terms of service says that when a user uploads media to facebook, it automatically becomes property of facebook. if someone uploads a picture of me, i dont see how that person has the legal authority to sign away my rights to my own image.

i can see a fair use argument for the pictures taken in public settings, but what if i threw a massive party in my basement and someone took my picture- possibly without my knowledge... thats not public domain, thats not fair use, and they would have no right to upload it to facebook. legally thats theft of my image or possibly personal information (my biometric signature).

Facebook is an American company. The Internet isn't any one network or service - it's tons. That's the point. You can't make someone from another country that is offering a voluntary service do something because it breaks the laws in your country but not the one the business belongs.

Weed is legal in Amsterdam, Netherlands but not in the US. Maybe the US should DEMAND that they make it illegal. You know, since the Americans over there are forced to use that service....

Germany: Fuck you. (Well, not Germany, I like Germany. Fuck the German government!).

BTW: is the Nazi party coming back!?

I don't really care much for Facebook, but I don't hate it. I use it lightly. I dislike a lot of it, but there are some good things with it. They are up there with Apple. They offer a service to people. I dislike the company, and most products, but they aren't evil...

Just wanting to add that it's not new that Europe has far more interest in protecting consumer/individual privacy than the US. They've done this for a very long time, with individual privacy rights trumping even corporate rights to invade privacy. In the US, that's opposite.

Ur_Mom said:

Facebook is an American company. The Internet isn't any one network or service - it's tons. That's the point. You can't make someone from another country that is offering a voluntary service do something because it breaks the laws in your country but not the one the business belongs.

Weed is legal in Amsterdam, Netherlands but not in the US. Maybe the US should DEMAND that they make it illegal. You know, since the Americans over there are forced to use that service....

Germany: Fuck you. (Well, not Germany, I like Germany. Fuck the German government!).

BTW: is the Nazi party coming back!?

I don't really care much for Facebook, but I don't hate it. I use it lightly. I dislike a lot of it, but there are some good things with it. They are up there with Apple. They offer a service to people. I dislike the company, and most products, but they aren't evil...

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What exactly are you on about?

You're already acting a bit challenged in understanding what's going on (why does "voluntary" have anything to do with this?), but then you throw in the "they aren't evil..." bit and I'm pretty sure you're either daft or just being sarcastic.

Is Facebook even on European-based servers? Because if not, I think Germany is going to have a hard time forcing them to do anything without a physical prescense in the EU, let alone Germany.

I'm all for a BoobBook.

Uh... isn't the ToS coupled with them uploading the photos themselves, counted as explicit consent?

Unless someone uploaded a pic of another.. or something.