Facebook tracks users, even those who don’t use it, says privacy report

April 3, 2015

2 minute read

Last week the Europen Union commission warned users to leave Facebook if they don’t want to be spied on – Now a Belgian Privacy Commission has also accused the social media giant of tracking individuals, including those who never had a Facebook account.

Facebook tracks users even when they log out from their social media account – The site also tracks individuals who do not even have a Facebook account, claims a latest, independent report submitted by the Belgian Privacy Commission.

Belgium’s data protection body has accused the social network of using plug-ins and cookies to follow users who have deleted their profile or never signed up for an account.

That means the social media giant is breaching European law requiring users to choose whether to have tracking cookies placed on their device or not.

Facebook is under scrutiny in Europe for its policy of tracking users in order to sell targeted advertisements. Though in January Facebook updated its privacy policies, yet it never stopped tracking people, according to The Guardian. The new report shows how Facebook’s Like button — are used to track users all over the web.

See Also: Don’t freak out about Facebook messenger app, NSA already has your chats

“When a logged-in Facebook user visits a site with Facebook social plug-ins, Facebook receives the Facebook ID and browser ID, along with the URL of the page being visited,” says the section of the report dedicated to social plug-ins. “ when a Facebook user explicitly logs out, Facebook keeps uniquely identifying … cookies in the browser, which are then used to track logged-out users across the web,” according to The Verge.

However, Facebook has denied the report compiled by Belgian Privacy Commission. In a statement to The Verge, Facebook claimed that:

“This report contains factual inaccuracies.”The authors have never contacted us, nor sought to clarify any assumptions upon which their report is based. Neither did they invite our comment on the report before making it public. We have explained in detail the inaccuracies in the earlier draft report … and have offered to meet with to explain why it is incorrect, but they have declined to meet or engage with us.”