E.U. Parliament Members Call for Facebook Audit, Competition Law Overhaul

Breitbart Tech: Following multiple hearings related to Facebook’s user data breach scandal involving the data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica,  E.U. MEPs have called for an audit of the social media company and an overhaul of E.U. competition law.

TechCrunch reports that following a series of hearings relating to the Cambridge Analytica hacks which saw the user data of millions of Facebook users accessed, the European Union parliament’s civil liberties committee has called for an update to competition rules in order to deal with “the digital reality.” The committee also encouraged other E.U. groups to look into the “possible monopoly” of social media platforms and tech firms.

Last week, Giovanni Buttarelli, the E.U.’s data protection supervisor stated that closer relations between the E.U.’s Competition and Commission and privacy regulators could happen soon as lawmakers work to update their oversight frameworks to deal with the growing issue of data abuse by tech firms. E.U. antitrust regulators in Germany and France have also been investigating Google and Facebook’s online advertising duopoly which Breitbart News has previously reported on.

The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) is the latest group to call for further investigation into social media regulation and antitrust efforts. The committee has also called for greater accountability and transparency surrounding “algorithmic-processed data by any actor, be it private or public.” LIBE committee chair MEP Claude Moraes has suggested in the past that the Facebook data breach situation could provide the framework to learn from and develop updates to the E.U.’s ePrivacy rules.  more here