Europe reacts

EU leaders urge privacy protection

EU leaders yesterday pressed tech giants to protect personal data in the wake of the scandal over information harvested from Facebook.

The Brussels summit was tackling the row over the misuse of Facebook data by British firm Cambridge Analytica, which played a role in US President Donald Trump’s election campaign.

“Social networks and digital platforms need to guarantee transparent practices and full protection of citizens’ privacy and personal data,” said a draft statement.

The leaders will further discuss the issue at a summit in the Bulgarian capital Sofia in May, it added.

Britain says Facebook must go further

Britain’s culture minister said yesterday Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to fix problems at the world’s biggest social media network did not go far enough.

Matt Hancock, Britain’s minister for culture and digital, said it should not be down to companies such as Facebook to set their own rules on data privacy.

“It shouldn’t be for a company to decide what is the appropriate balance between privacy and innovation and use of data, those rules should be set by society as a whole and so set by parliament,” he told BBC radio.

“That’s the approach that we are taking — the big tech companies need to abide by the law and we are strengthening the law.”

Germany summons Facebook officials

Germany’s justice minister said yesterday she had asked to speak to Facebook executives to find out whether the social media site’s 30 million users in the country were affected by the data scandal.

Katarina Barley said it must be possible for users of social media sites to specify whether they are happy for their data to be used in certain ways.