European Privacy Watchdogs Join Forces to Probe Facebook

European data protection authorities have joined
forces to probe Facebook's privacy controls, a
French watchdog said Thursday, putting the
popular US social media giant under fresh
pressure.
"There is concerted collective action between five
European authorities, France, Belgium, Germany,
the Netherlands and Spain," said Isabelle Falque-
Pierrotin, head of France's CNIL privacy
watchdog.
She added that the Netherlands was coordinating
the project, which consists of a working group
involving representatives from the five countries
that will look into Facebook's practices.
Facebook has for years been dogged by concerns
over how well privacy is safeguarded online.
Falque-Pierrotin said Facebook's privacy policy
was at the heart of discussions, and data
protection watchdogs are likely to examine the
sharing of data between different apps such as
Instagram or Whatsapp , both of which belong to
the US giant.
Facebook, whose international headquarters are
based in Dublin, for its part said it was acting in
compliance with data protection legislation.
"We recently updated our terms and policies to
make them more clear and concise, we're
confident the updates comply with applicable
laws," a Facebook spokeswoman told AFP.
Earlier this month , an Austrian law graduate filed
a closely-watched class action suit against the
social network for alleged privacy breaches.
Max Schrems and 25,000 other users are suing
the social media giant for various rights
violations, ranging from the "illegal" tracking of
their data under European Union law to
Facebook's involvement in the Prism surveillance
programme of the US National Security Agency.
Google has also been in the firing line over
privacy issues and has had multiple run-ins with
authorities in Europe.
In December, for instance, Dutch privacy
watchdog DPA warned Google it faced a hefty fine
if it did not fix alleged breaches in data protection
laws when it uses personal details for targeted
advertising.