Internal Facebook documents that have been leaked show that the social network’s team of engineers recognizes not having a clear idea of where they are and what is being done with the data coming from users.
The extension and diversification in the use that Facebook makes of data from users makes it difficult to control where they are and what is done with them
In a very graphic way, these documents include the explanation offered by one of the Facebook engineers who compares the situation with a bottle of ink that is a mixture of all the data of the users of the social network. The content of said pot (sensitive data, data from third parties, data generated by the user himself…) is dumped into a lake (equivalent to Facebook’s data systems).
Once that “ink” has spread throughout the “water” there is no way to re-bottle it. Furthermore, it is complicated manage the fact that the “ink” only flows in one direction and limit their “growth.”
The document was drafted last year by a group of Facebook engineers specializing in privacy management in relation to the social network’s advertising and product businesses. Its objective is to achieve significant connections between users and companies, placing monetization at the center of their priorities framed in a strategy that provides Facebook with sustained growth.
But in said document they make a warning to Facebook itself to prevent possible problems, specifically against the regulatory bodies of the European Union and the United States, concerned about the privacy of users. They recognize that the appropriate levels of control over their data and the use that can be given to them are not met, which can increase the risk of making errors.
In the case of European legislation, the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) establishes in its article 5 that all data collected by a platform must have been collected for reasons explicitly specified, for legitimate uses, without being processed in another way. way, and also all this with the express authorization of the owner of said data.
This would be one of the elements that would fail in the procedures of Facebook and on which the document prepared by the engineers of the social network that has now been leaked draws attention, where it is recognized that Facebook can know on which server the data is stored, but not maintaining complete control over their destination and use.
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