More than twenty companies including Google Facebook and eBay will tomorrow file a complaint with France’s State Council, officially declaring their opposition to a ruling that requires them to keep data on web users for over a year.
The AFP reports that other companies operating in the country, including video website Dailymotion and marketplace PriceMinister, will bring a case before France’s highest judical body, a representative from the French Association of Internet Community Services (ASIC) said on earlier today.
ASIC head Benoit Tabaka told the press that it is “appealing at the State Council against the decree to keep connection data,” complaining that the decree, published at the beginning of March, would require e-commerce, video and email websites to keep an array of data on their customers.
This data includes:
“Full names, associated postal address, pseudonyms, associated email addresses, telephone number, passwords and data used to check or modify them.”
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Facebook and the other companies must keep data for 12 months, relinquishing it to French authorities should it be demanded.
The complaint shows that Facebook and Google are willing to defend user privacy, despite having issues with user data in the past. The companies are likely to ask why such measures we put into place without consultation with the European Commission, and why authorities should be allowed access to passwords, threatening user privacy.
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