Berlin The Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber has expressed concerns about the use of the social networks Instagram, Tiktok and Clubhouse in federal authorities. “In cooperation with the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), we carry out a technical check of the respective apps,” Kelber told the Handelsblatt. “It’s about the software that runs on the devices of the federal authorities and their employees.”
According to Kelber, initial findings point to “data protection problems”. However, the test is not yet complete. “As an authority, we have to be very specific.”
Facebook bought Instagram for about $1 billion in 2012. The photo app now has around one billion users. Consumer advocates had repeatedly criticized the platform for deficits in the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Accordingly, consumers could hardly understand how their data is processed.
The video app Tiktok is also repeatedly criticized for data protection concerns. The Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) therefore considered no longer using the application. However, the Federal Ministry currently maintains a Tiktok account that is followed by almost 135,000 users.
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The audio app Clubhouse was warned last year by the Federation of Consumer Organizations (VZBV) due to serious defects. The reason given was that the clubhouse operator was claiming the right to comprehensively use the contact information uploaded by the users from the address books of the smartphones and, for example, to bother them with advertising. Clubhouse is thus violating the GDPR.
Facebook fan pages cannot be operated in accordance with data protection regulations
Kelber is also critical of the Facebook fan pages. Last year, this led to the data protection officer demanding that the federal government and the highest federal authorities shut down their Facebook pages by the end of 2021.
“Facebook fan pages still cannot be operated in a legally compliant manner due to the unclear shared data protection responsibility between Facebook and the operator of the page,” said Kelber. That is why the supervisory authorities have repeatedly recommended that operations be stopped if Facebook, as before, does not make any changes. “It is necessary to draw a conclusion from this at some point.”
With a shutdown of the Facebook pages, the federal government could lose a considerable reach. The central website of the federal government has around 900,000 fans and over a million subscribers on Facebook. Without their own fan pages, ministries and authorities would hardly be able to react to critical comments spread on the Facebook platform.
So far, however, no authority has complied with the switch-off request. Kelber therefore sees no immediate need for action. “My goal is not necessarily to switch off Facebook fan pages, but I want to achieve data protection-compliant communication between the federal government and the citizens,” he said. The price should not be that data that is not allowed to be collected is processed and stored.
Sharp criticism of Facebook
As examples, Kelber gave information about which topics citizens are interested in or which diseases they have read about on the website of a specific authority. “These are not data that concern government agencies and of course not Facebook at all,” emphasized the head of the authority.
From Kelber’s point of view, the problem can only be solved if Facebook gives in. However, he criticized that the company does not seem to be in a position to precisely define its data protection responsibility and then to assume it, i.e. to guarantee legally compliant data collection and data subject rights.
However, Kelber sees the federal government as unable to meet its data protection responsibilities. “She had already tried in the past to get a different contractual basis with Facebook, but was fobbed off with relatively general provisions.”
How things will continue is not yet foreseeable. “We have now held talks with the federal government and Facebook again and will see what the result will be,” said Kelber. “I hope that Facebook will finally show some understanding and bring not only the federal government’s fan pages, but all fan pages, into a form that complies with European data protection regulations.”
More: Snapchat, Instagram, Google: How internet giants disregard data protection.