SOCIAL NETWORK ‘TRACKS YOU BROWSING AFTER YOU QUIT SITE’
FACEBOOK tracks users’ web browsing after they leave the social network site, the Data Protection Commissioner said yesterday. Helen Dixon was appearing before the Oireachtas Communications Committee, where she said users could change their privacy settings but that the default setting was that their movements from website to website were followed by Facebook.
Ms Dixon said her office was consulting with the tech company on the matter. And she added that it was not only Facebook that tracked users in this manner.
Separately, answering questions from TDs and senators, she said her office frequently received complaints from workers that they had been ‘inappropriately and excessively’ monitored on CCTV in the workplace,
She said: ‘We’ve also received complaints from individuals that their emails were accessed, that they were accessed without their knowledge, and we’ve investigated those particular cases.’
The matter arose on foot of the ongoing controversy at Independent News & Media, which the data watchdog refused to comment on as it is before the courts.
Ms Dixon was appearing to answer questions on the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and address any concerns the public may have about data safety.
She added that many of the current concerns about privacy and safety would be addressed by the EU’s forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation, which comes into force on May 25.