Hungary wants guarantees that Facebook will not pass on the conversations of its Hungarian users to third parties, an official has said.
On Wednesday, Facebook admitted that it recorded the conversations of the users of its Messenger chat application and made transcripts of those. Facebook, while adding that this happened with the consent of users, said it will cease the practice.
According to Rmx.news, Attila Péterfalvi, head of the National Authority for Data Protection and Information Freedom (NAIH), said on Thursday that Hungary will seek written guarantees from Facebook that the transcripts of Hungarian users’ conversations will not be passed on to third parties.
Given that Facebook has its European headquarters in Ireland, in the European Union the case will be investigated by the Irish Data Protection Commission, but Péterfalvi added that the Hungarian NAIH will work closely with its Irish counterpart on the matter.
He added that should Facebook’s guarantees prove insufficient, Hungary will use the EU’s data protection directive GDPR to enforce its demand.
Hungarian constitutional scholar Bernát Török, director of the National University of Public Service’s Information Society Research Institute told Magyar Nemzet that while no single national authority has the teeth to effectively take on multinational giants, they can and must enforce national legislation in their own territory.
“Despite many opinions to the contrary, emerging international practice shows that there is such a thing as a ‘national online space’ within which national authorities and legislators can enforce their will,” Török said.
Photo cedit: martechtoday.com