Facebook has removed a number of features from its Instagram and Messenger apps in Europe due to what it says is an update to EU privacy rules - including security features it uses to scan for child abuse content.
A recent change to the ePrivacy Directive, that was designed to prevent companies such as Facebook mining message content and metadata for advertising purposes, has instead resulted in the company turning a number of features off.
Features including creating polls in apps, using stickers and other augmented reality image filters on Instagram, and giving Messenger contacts nicknames are among those now turned off for Facebook users within the European Union and UK.
Meanwhile, Facebook seems to have enough technical debt that it’s blown a Euro-privacy deadline Share
Google has revealed the cause of its very unwelcome Gmail outage and on
The Register’s reading of the situation it boils down to forgetting to take an obsolete version of software out of production.
Google’s shorter explanation for the mess is: “Credential issuance and account metadata lookups for all Google user accounts failed. As a result, we could not verify that user requests were authenticated and served 5xx errors on virtually all authenticated traffic.”
The longer version, detailed in Google’s incident report, kicks off by revealing “The Google User ID Service maintains a unique identifier for every account and handles authentication credentials for OAuth tokens and cookies. It stores account data in a distributed database, which uses Paxos protocols to coordinate updates. For security reasons, this service will reject requests when it detects outd
Facebook disables some Messenger and Instagram features in European countries
These features have been temporarily disabled to comply with new data usage rules in the European Union (EU) countries which come under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive (ePrivacy Directive). Updated: December 21, 2020 8:59:18 am
Facebook integrated Instagram and Messenger earlier this year (Image: Instagram)
Facebook has notified its users that some of the features on the Messenger and Instagram will be temporarily available in Europe. Users in Europe have reported that they are seeing a message informing them about the disabling of the features. “This is to respect new rules for messaging services in Europe. We’re working to bring them back,” the message read.
Messenger Disables Several Features Due to EU Privacy Laws
If you were wondering why a warning that
‘some features have been disabled’ appeared on your messenger app this week, Messenger is currently trying its best to navigate new privacy laws in Europe – though unfortunately, it’s not that great…
The ‘ePrivacy Directive’ EU laws will be enacted as of 21
st December and will temporarily restrict certain data from being shared on both Facebook and Instagram…
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an issue in relation to privacy arise among Facebook – from huge scandals like Cambridge Analytica to basic infringements like suspiciously targeted ads – Facebook has been questioned for its practices when it comes to their users quite a few times…
The French data protection authority’s
decisions cite violations of the cookie rules under the ePrivacy Directive and provide important insights on explicit consent.
Between December 2019 and May 2020, the French data protection authority (CNIL) conducted multiple online investigations by visiting google.fr and amazon.fr, before launching a full-scale investigation into Google LLC, Google Ireland, and Amazon Europe Core. On 7 December 2020, the CNIL handed down two decisions, one against Google LLC (€60 million fine) and Google Ireland (€40 million fine), and another against Amazon Europe Core (€35 million fine). Contrary to a previous sanction against Google LLC, which was triggered by specific complaints about its practices, the CNIL’s decisions indicate that the investigations were launched