Germany's justice minister on Monday said Facebook should face "stricter" oversight and be more transparent with its users, as the tech giant struggles to contain the fallout from a huge data privacy scandal. Speaking after a meeting with European Facebook executives in Berlin, Justice Minister Katarina Barley said the firm's assurances that it had already cracked down on the misuse of personal data were "not enough".
"In future we will clearly have to monitor companies like Facebook more strictly and punish data protection violations severely and quickly," she told reporters. Facebook was plunged into crisis when a whistleblower revealed that a British consultancy linked to US President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign harvested the data of some 50 million Facebook users without their consent.
The revelation reignited longstanding European concerns that the social media giant was not doing enough to protect the privacy of its users. The issue is particularly sensitive in Germany, a nation still haunted by the surveillance carried out by the Nazis and the communist-era Stasi secret police. Barley said Facebook should be more transparent with its users, who should be informed in "clear, precise and simple language" how their personal data will be used, and given the chance to opt out if they object.
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