Facebook does not have to provide ‘sensitive information’ in European antitrust investigation

Facebook disagrees with a European Commission investigation into its privacy practices. The social network should submit documents to the EC in an antitrust investigation, but successfully objected.

Facebook had to issue documents based on more than 2500 search terms by an investigation committee of the EC. This concerns the investigation opened last year by the EC into Facebook about possible abuse of power of its position in the advertising market. Facebook would have to provide documents such as e-mails that contain certain keywords. For example, it concerns search terms such as ‘high demand’, ‘shut down’ and ‘not good for us’.

Facebook thinks that request has been drawn up much too broadly. In addition, the requested documents would contain a lot of personal information about employees. “We are working with the Commission and expect to hand them over hundreds of thousands of documents,” a company lawyer told the BBC. “The EC’s widespread request would require us to hand over largely irrelevant documents unrelated to the investigation. These include sensitive information such as employees’ medical records, personal financial records, and private information about employees and their family members. . “

Facebook then went to court. The EU Court of Justice agreed with the tech giant on Tuesday, Reuters writes. The inquiry commission must first formulate what security it guarantees for the documents before they are requested. Until then, Facebook does not have to give the documents away.