Data privacy – no more Facebook fan pages for german authorities

German authorities are now expected to delete their Facebook fanpages by the end of the year, as the Federal Data Protection Commissioner plans to take remedial action against them from the beginning of 2022.

No data protection-compliant operation possible

Two years ago, it was already pointed out to the authorities that it was not possible to operate a Facebook fan page with the applicable data protection regulations. Now all authorities are to delete their page by the end of the year. At the beginning of 2022, action is then to be taken against the fan page by the Federal Data Protection Commissioner. In the process, the Federal Data Protection Commissioner, Ulrich Kelber, announced in a letter that he will use the “remedial measures available to him”.

On this letter, Ulrich Kelber already received feedback from individual resorts, which affirmed, they would consider the fan page on the social media platform Facebook, as an “important element for their public relations work.”

Common Responsibility

According to data protection regulations, legally compliant operation of a Facebook fan page is only possible with a joint responsibility agreement. This agreement must comply with the requirements set out in Art. 26 DSGVO. However, users are only referred to contact Facebook for issues around data processing, which is not sufficient. In order to address the issue, the German government had dealt with Facebook, but unfortunately no agreement was reached.

In the process, the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (BPA) had contacted Facebook and then received only the Public Addendum of October 2019. However, this is not sufficient in the view of the authorities. Ulrich Kelber explained, “I therefore initially refrained from taking remedial action, taking into account the principle of proportionality. However, this only applied on condition that the negotiations with Facebook make demonstrable progress and have recognizable prospects of success in the near future.”

Since no progress is in sight and a longer wait is no longer possible in the opinion of the Federal Data Protection Commissioner due to the ongoing violation of the protection of personal data of Facebook users, he now wants to take action against it.

Schrems II ruling

Apart from that, the Schrems II ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) must also be taken into account here. The data is transferred from Facebook to a third party location. However, the transfer of personal data of citizens from the EU to a third country is only permitted if there is an essentially equal level of data protection in this third country. However, this is not the case with the USA, according to Ulrich Kelber.

Furthermore, the letter of the Federal Data Protection Commissioner prepares for the examination of the apps TikTok, Clubhouse and also Instagram. Although the examination of the apps has not yet been completed, the first deficits in terms of data protection law are already apparent here as well. The recommendation of the Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber is therefore not to use the corresponding apps on serviceable devices.