Italian agency orders Facebook to provide data to its user

The Italian data protection authority has ordered social networking site Facebook to hand over personal data of an Italian user that was hacked and used on his fake account by a "Facebook friend."

According to a report in Ars Technica, under the Italian law, the personal data of both the real and fake accounts should be sent to the complainant by Facebook.

Italy's data protection authority ordered Facebook neither to destroy the fake account's data nor to process it further.

The agency wants the data to be saved for possible use in a criminal investigation by the authorities.

According to the report, the Italian user approached the agency after he received "unsatisfactory" response from Facebook on his complaint about abuse of his account.

The user alleged that information and pictures were taken from his Facebook account by a "friend" in order to create a fake account where his personal data was posted, damaging his reputation.

The Italian agency then asked Facebook to provide all the data, including the personal information, photos and posts to the original user.

Facebook, however, refused to comment on the Italian order, the report added.

"Although it was Facebook Ireland that had carried out the processing of the personal data of the two accounts, the Italian data protection authority was competent to find that Italian privacy laws had been broken," the report noted.

New EU data protection rules which aim to give citizens back control of their personal data and create a high, uniform level of data protection across the EU approved by the EU parliament last month.

The reform also sets minimum standards on use of data for policing and judicial purposes.

"This is a great success for the European Parliament and a fierce European 'yes' to strong consumer rights and competition in the digital age. Citizens will be able to decide for themselves which personal information they want to share", said Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens, DE), who steered the legislation through Parliament.

"The regulation will also create clarity for businesses by establishing a single law across the EU. The new law creates confidence, legal certainty and fairer competition", he added.

--IANS

na/vm