A Belgian court ordered Facebook to stop collecting data about its users when they are on sites other than Facebook, and requested that all Belgian citizen data collected in these circumstances be destroyed. The ruling establishes that Facebook's data collection violates the privacy law of the European Union and if Facebook does not comply with the decision it risks daily fines of 250,000 euros up to a total maximum of 100 million euros. The decision came at the end of a process that began in 2015 at the initiative of the Belgian privacy guarantor (CPP) and overturns an appeal ruling of June 2016 which instead proved Facebook right.
Facebook uses various systems to track its users once they leave its site – cookies, for example – and is able to track and collect data even on people who visit its site even without being a member. The data collection has mainly commercial purposes – for example the information is used to distribute advertising with greater capillarity – but, according to the judges who dealt with the case, Facebook does not adequately inform users about the data it collects and is not transparent enough on the purposes. of data collection and on the duration of their conservation. Facebook defended itself against the accusations by saying that all sites on which data is collected are required to inform their users.
