TAKING ACTION AGAINST
FACEBOOK
, following up on my previous Blog
article about taking on Facebook, I am trailblazing taking on
Facebook. As far as the Data Protection line of attack this is where
I have got to so far:-
Letter sent to Facebook Ireland Limited
on the 29th July:-
Dear Sir
Re: GDPR request for
information
I, Robin Tilbrook, make the following
request:
Under the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679.[ Data Protection Act 2018 (UK)]
please supply copies of all correspondence, emails, letters, instant
messenger, text, Whatsapp, data, informal notes, transcripts of off
the record conversations, meeting minutes, internet articles that were
read, and other records relating to:-
In the circumstances I formally ask,
pursuant to the General Data Protection Regulation, for you to provide
me with full disclosure of all information/data which you might rely
upon to justify your Company’s behaviour in disabling my
profile.
The history of this case is as
follows:-
Some time on Thursday,
16th May 2019 Facebook “Disabled” my “Personal
Profile”.
The first I knew about this was when I
tried to sign on to check if I had had any messages. I was then told
that the account had been “Disabled”.
Here is exactly what the text
said:-
“Your account has been
disabled
For more information, or if you think
your account was disabled by mistake visit the Help Centre”
For more information about our policies
please review the Facebook Community Standards. If you think your
account was disabled by mistake please contact us.”
I of course thought that that must be
wrong and therefore went to their next page which said:-
“Why was my account
disabled?
Your account has been disabled for
violating Facebook’s Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities.
Our Policies
One of Facebook’s main priorities is the
comfort and safety of our members. The following are not allowed on
Facebook:
· Support for a violent and/or
criminal organization or group
· Credible threats to harm others
or the promotion of self-destructive behaviour
· Targeting other individuals on
the site
· Hate speech or singling people
out based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender,
sexual orientation, disability or disease
· Graphic content including
sadistic displays of violence against people or animals and depictions
of sexual assault
· Selling recreational or
pharmaceutical drugs
Learn More
After looking carefully at that page I
was able to see that there was some element of an appeal process, so I
clicked onto the link they provided and got a page which only told me
to send them a PDF of my passport or other ID.
So all I was able to do in response to
my Profile being “Disabled” was to send them an image of my passport
to confirm my identity!
On Friday I received a response saying
that the ID Team couldn’t help with any appeal!
Which is absolutely hopeless
.
At that point I thought Facebook’s
procedures for appeals were completely inadequate and didn’t even
remotely approach the basic “Rules of Natural Justice”. I therefore
sent off an email to every Facebook email address that I had
got.
Here is my email to them:-
“Dear Sir
I have tried to log in to my above
profile and your system asked me to submit an ID check. There is no
proper detail of any reason why this happened nor a clear appeal
process just some generic items which can’t be relevant to
me.
I am currently a candidate standing
in an election here in England and I have already done your double
identity check for political figures and advertising so you should be
aware.
Here in the UK it is a crime under
the Representation Of the People Acts for candidates to be slandered
so I would politely ask you to sort this out and restore my profile or
I shall get the police involved tomorrow.”
In reply, I did get this
answer:-
“Hi Robin,
Thanks for your report. We’ll
review the information you provided and get back to you when we have
an update on your report.
In the meantime, you can review our
Community Standards to learn more bout what is and isn’t allowed on
Facebook:
We appreciate your
patience.
Thanks,
The Facebook Team
Since then I have not received any
substantive response explaining either why they have done it or what
they are going to do about it. Will you help us fight
them ?
I further requested the
following:
Any discussions between staff and Employer regarding
the above.
And I would like access to the following:
-
a) Any memoranda and notes
taken (including handwritten notes) at any meetings where the above
was discussed.
b) E-mails, or any form of
instant messaging or text message communications, between individuals
at employer, including personal e-mails to the extent that they were
used for work purposes regarding the above.
c) Transcripts of Telephone
conversations where the above was discussed.
In conducting a search, please ensure
that search terms include for my full name, my initials, a short name
or any name or variation that might be used by any of the above people
to identify me.
If you do not disclose any of the
documents mentioned above, I would be grateful if you could confirm
that a search has been conducted and no results have been found. I may
in due course, request sight of the search terms that were used and
the results of the searches conducted.
It may be helpful for me to point out
that there are time limits set for you response under the Data
Protection Act 2018 (UK) and sanctions, including criminal sanctions,
for non-compliance.
Yours faithfully
R C W Tilbrook
Facebook’s Reply of the
14th August:-
"Dear Mr Tilbrook
Thank you for contacting
Facebook.
In relation to the disablement of your
account, our specialist team reviewed the disablement of your account
and we can confirm that your account was correctly disabled for
violations of our Terms of Service and Community Standards. Our
internal policies and protocols with respect to the application of our
Terms and Community Standards are not your personal data and so these
documents do not fall within the scope of Article 15 GDPR.
With respect to our decision to disable
your account we reserve the right not to provide users with access to
data relating to disablement and we are entitled to do so under the
exemptions to article 15 GDPR.
To the extent information contained in
internal documentation in respect of the violation of our policies and
protocols comprises personal data about you, we are not able to
provide this information to you as such provision could adversely
affect the rights and freedoms of others, as set out in Article 15 (4)
GDPR. This would include the rights and freedoms of the members of
our Community Operations team but more importantly, the rights and
freedoms of users who have reported your behaviour.
Furthermore, providing specific
information around what exactly triggers disablement may have the
propensity to prejudice the effective application of our policies and
protocols by potentially allowing individuals to understand how we
determine breaches and therefore how to adjust their behaviour
slightly so as to avoid their account being actioned. As such, we
will not comply with your request for this specific data.
We hope this is helpful information, but
please do let us know if you have any further questions.
Facebook"
I then responded on the
20th August as follows:-
Dear Sir
Thank you for your letter of the
14th August.
Your answer is wholly unsatisfactory and
amounts to a blatant breach not only of the GDPR but also of the basic
“Rules of Natural Justice”.
I shall now seek your prosecution for
criminal breaches of the GDPR.
Yours faithfully
R C W Tilbrook
I have also written to the Information
Commissioner as follows on the 21st August:-
Dear Sir
Complaint against
Facebook
I enclose a copy of my letter to Facebook
dated the 29th July 2019 requesting information under the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 [Data
Protection Act 2018 (UK)]. I also enclose a copy of Facebook’s
response dated the 14th August, together with my
reply.
In the circumstances I formally request
that you accept this as a complaint against Facebook. I should like
to see them prosecuted if they fail to provide the requisite
data.
Yours faithfully
R C W Tilbrook
They cannot be allowed to continue to suppress the public or
free speech! Can I could on your support to help us fight back
against the social media giant ?

If you are not already a member of the English Democrats,
why not join today!

Yours sincerely

Robin Tilbrook
Chairman - The English Democrats
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