Facebook has planned to sue EU antitrust regulators for requesting data beyond what is relevant, including extremely sensitive details. According to the social media giant, the reason is to investigate the company’s data and marketplace.
Since last year, Facebook had been under investigation by EU competition enforcers. One of the investigations is on its data collection, and the other is on its online marketplace introduced in 2016.
The company’s online marketplace is utilized by 800 million users in 70 nations to buy and sell products. Over the last few years, the company has faced several data-related problems and has come under increased scrutiny from many countries’ governments.
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Since then, the company has provided the Commission with 315,000 records equal to 1.7 million words.
The extremely wide scope of the Commission’s demands indicates that it has to submit largely unrelated records. And which have nothing to do with the Commission’s inquiries. This includes extremely private data such as medical information for staff. Other information includes private finance documents and personal data on employee family members, according to the Facebook associate.
The company is also looking to put a stop to calls for providing its data for investigation as it believes such demands need to be examined by EU courts.
Nature of Facebook investigation and data requests
According to a person familiar with the issue, EU regulators examined documents in the search for about 2,500 search terms. These include things like “big question,” “shut down” and “not nice for us,”
The individual said these search words might be part of health records, performance assessment of workers, and even business work applications that do not apply to EU investigations.
In addition to the two cases brought against the Agency, Facebook is now pursuing temporary action at the General Court of Luxembourg. This is the second-highest in Europe. This will see to the suspension of demands for data before judges decide, according to a court report.
