Canada: Issued ruling in investigation into Facebook for alleged privacy violations

On 25 April 2019, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) and Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia closed a joint investigation into Facebook's data protection practices in connection with the access to personal information of users by third-party apps. According to the agencies, Facebook violated Canadian privacy laws and failed to protect the personal information of its users in a number of ways, including allowing unauthorised third parties to access the personal information of users, failing to obtain meaningful consent from "friends" of users who installed the app in question, and lacking proper oversight and safeguards regarding privacy practices of apps. Facebook disputed these findings and refused to implement the measures recommended by the agencies, who in turn signalled their intention to take the matter to Federal Court.