Facebook accused of breaching Canadian privacy laws

The BBC reported on Friday that Canada's Privacy Commissioner has recommended steps to ensure social networking site Facebook protects the privacy of Canadian users of the service, and meets requirements of Canadian privacy legislation. The Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart laid out the findings of a report which said Facebook's information about privacy practices was "often confusing or incomplete", and urged the site to make its policies more transparent to users.

One area of breach is Facebook's policy of holding on to subscribers' personal information, even after their accounts had been deactivated.

It was also criticised for failing to adequately restrict access of users' personal details to some of the 950,000 developers in 180 countries who provide applications, such as games, for the site.

It is reported that Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly has said Facebook is working with the Canadian commission to resolve the issues.

For more information you can read the news release on the website of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or look at the report itself.