Many federal authorities use their own Facebook pages as part of their public relations. Facebook does not ensure that these sites are compliant with the GDPR. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner (BfDI) Ulrich Kelber is therefore calling for the pages to be shut down by the end of the year.
The BfDI has written to the authorities under its control to point out that, in its opinion, it is not possible to operate a Facebook page in compliance with the regulations on data protection. As of January, it reserves the right to make use of its remedial measures under Article 58 GDPR. Until now, data protection supervisory authorities responsible for the non-public sector have held back as long as federal authorities operated Facebook fan pages. Should there be a change here, this might be expected to have a direct impact on companies as well.
“The public authorities of the federal government, which are particularly bound by law, have a role model function with regard to compliance with data protection law,” said Kelber. “I therefore see them as having a particular responsibility to behave in a manner that complies with data protection law.” This also includes other applications, he said.
