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Facebook to try and swerve GDPR

April 19, 2018

Facebook has changed its terms of service to put 1.5 billion members outside the protection of GDPR.  The change involves users who will be regulated via its European headquarters in Ireland.

The move, says Reuters, will see Facebook users outside the EU governed by Facebook Inc in the US rather than Facebook Ireland. It is widely seen as a way of the social network avoiding having to apply the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to countries outside the EU.

The change will affect more than 70 per cent of its more than two billion members. As of December, Facebook had 239 million users in the US and Canada and 370 million in Europe. It also had 1.5 billion members in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America, and they are the ones affected by the change. Users in the US and Canada have never been subject to European rules.

“The GDPR and EU consumer law set out specific rules for terms and data policies which we have incorporated for EU users. We have been clear that we are offering everyone who uses Facebook the same privacy protections, controls and settings, no matter where they live,” said Stephen Deadman, deputy chief global privacy officer at Facebook.

Categories: Articles, Regulation, Social Media