Canada Launches Facebook Investigation On Students' Complaints

June 1, 2008 10:26 a.m. EST

Ottawa, Canada (AHN) - Canada's Federal Privacy body is investigating popular social networking website Facebook, for possible violations of Canada's privacy laws.

The move resulted from a complaint filed by four law students from the University of Ottawa, citing at least 22 violations by Facebook.

"There's definitely some significant shortcomings with Facebook's privacy settings and with their ability to protect users," one of the complainants, Harley Finkelstein, told Agence France-Presse.

Finkelstein and fellow students alleged in their report that Facebook sends personal information to third parties for advertising and marketing activities without their knowledge or consent. The complaint was sent to the Office of Canada's Privacy Commissioner.

The social networking site, for its part, denied the allegations. "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors - most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users," AFP quoted Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly.

Facebook has seven million registered members in Canada, and over 70 million worldwide.