The commissioner in charge of data protection, Viviane Reding, will announce her "concern" about Facebook's recent moves in a speech today (9 February), during European Safer Internet Day celebrations in Strasbourg.
Despite growing pressure to improve data protection and the safety of social network users, Facebook surprisingly changed its privacy policy at the end of January, making it easier to access to personal information hosted on its platform.
Since January, Facebook profiles have been accessible by default. Users with greater privacy awareness will have to make their profiles private so that they can only be viewed by friends, if they want to maintain control over their personal information.
The previous situation was exactly the opposite. Profiles were private by default and were only made public by if users explicitly asked to do so.
"I am surprised by this sudden change of policy. I can't understand that, because it's in the interests of social network sites to give users control of their privacy," Reding will say today.
The commissioner, concerned about recent changes made by Facebook, will closely follow the investigation of Canada's privacy commissioner in this matter, explained an official close to Reding.
On 27 January, the Canadian privacy commissioner launched a new probe into Facebook after complaints over its new privacy settings.
EU report on social networking
The attacks on Facebook come as the Commission today publishes today a report on privacy protection measures applied by social networks, where Facebook appears among the leading Web firms in terms of protection of users' personal data.
Indeed, the California-based company is considered to set best practice in providing easy mechanisms to report violations on its platform, and in restricting the access of under-age persons to certain services and websites.
In the report, Facebook scored highly for making personal information visible only to friends. However, the study was drawn up in December, before Facebook's policy change, and "this is not reflected in the present evaluation report," stressed a EU official. The overall evaluation of Facebook is likely to significantly change if the firm does not alter its privacy policy.
"Minors' profiles need to be set to private by default and questions or abuse reports have to receive quick and appropriate responses. The Internet is now vital to our children, and it is the responsibility of all to make it safe," Commissioner Reding will underline in her speech today.
The report is the first evaluation of the agreement voluntarily signed in 2009 by major social networks operating in the EU, including Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Bebo and Daily Motion.
25 companies committed to applying a number of data protection measures under pressure from national and EU institutions. The first evaluation of these engagements finds that many social networks are improving their privacy protection, notably by providing safety tips aimed at young users in particular.
However, the report also stresses that less than half of the social networks monitored applied default privacy settings or made the profiles of minors unfindable on search engines.
"Last year the European Commission urged companies to act, and I am glad that many have heeded this call. However I expect all companies to do more," Commissioner Reding will say today.
