Facebook steps up privacy education, shares ‘privacy principles’ for first time

Amid ongoing scrutiny and ahead of the May 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) deadline in Europe, Facebook is undertaking a new privacy education campaign for users. The company outlined several steps it will take to help users better understand and access its privacy tools.

Facebook also exposed the company’s “privacy principles,” it said, for the first time:

• We give you control of your privacy.
• We help people understand how their data is used.
• We design privacy into our products from the outset.
• We work hard to keep your information secure. 
You own and can delete your information.
• Improvement is constant.
• We are accountable.

The education campaign will involve a series of videos in the News Feed that address a range of privacy-related topics: “How to control what information Facebook uses to show you ads, how to review and delete old posts, and even what it means to delete your account.”

The company is also promoting its Privacy Checkup and will be introducing a new “privacy center,” which will centralize privacy controls in a single place online. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced the new privacy center in Europe last week. Google has had a centralized privacy and security dashboard since 2015.

Companies found in violation of GDPR are subject to penalties that equal 4x their global revenues or €20 million, whichever amount is greater.