Facebook agrees to increased federal oversight on privacy: report

Facebook is open to increased oversight from the U.S. government as part of a settlement over its privacy practices.

According to the Washington Post, the social networking company would be required to submit new products and services to the Federal Trade Commission for review. 

A source familiar with the settlement talks says that Facebook would provide documentation outlining its decision-making process along with possible privacy issues for new features. The FTC would then analyze how they would impact the platform’s users.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top company executives would also be required to “assess the company’s privacy safeguards and sign off on them” every quarter as part of the deal. This report would be provided to independent members of a committee on Facebook’s board tasked with overseeing the company’s data collection practices.

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In addition to the committee, Facebook would need to “swiftly” report data privacy issues to the FTC as well as provide a more rigorous review of third-party app developers in order to avoid such privacy mishaps in the first place.

The FTC would also approve of a third-party watchdog which would regularly evaluate the company’s privacy practices.

Word that Facebook has agreed to federal privacy oversight comes one day after Politico published a report detailing some of the very same settlement proposals from the FTC. The social networking company seems to be signalling that it would like to wrap up the investigation, which was opened following the Cambridge Analytica revelations in March of last year.

The privacy oversight measures would be required in addition to the record-breaking $3 to $5 billion fine Facebook is expected to pay as a part of the settlement.

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