German privacy regulators determined Facebook’s controversial “real name” policy violates individual privacy rights under the country’s data protection law and that consumers can use pseudonyms if they choose.
The Hamburg data protection authority said Tuesday the social network could no longer force users to provide government documentation such as passports, drivers licenses, and other ID forms to verify their Facebook account and use the site.
“As in many other complaints against Facebook, this case demonstrates that the network wants to enforce the so-called real names policy with no regard to national legislation,” said Johannes Caspar, the agency’s commissioner, adding that pseudonyms are permitted under German law and “the unauthorised modification of the pseudonym … blatantly violated the right to informational self-determination and constitutes a deliberate infringement of the Data Protection Act.”
Facebook disagreed. “We’re disappointed Facebook’s authentic name policy is being revisited, since German courts have reviewed it on multiple occasions and regulators have determined it fully complies with applicable European data protection law,” a spokesperson said in a statement to ThinkProgress. “The use of authentic names on Facebook protects people’s privacy and safety by ensuring people know who they’re sharing and connecting with.”
The decision is the latest blow in the long-fought battle between European privacy regulators and U.S. tech companies. Belgian privacy group sued Facebook in June because of its data-tracking practices, Reuters reported. Facebook, along with other American tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, is fighting another European privacy lawsuit that could affect how the companies operate internationally because of their cooperation with the National Security Agency’s PRISM program.
But besides its data collection practices, the company’s real name policy specifically has drawn protests in Europe and the U.S. for its strict application and seeming disregard for people’s safety, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and culture.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently commented on uproar surrounding the policy.
“Real names are an important part of how our community works for a couple of reasons. First, it helps keep people safe. We know that people are much less likely to try to act abusively towards other members of our community when they’re using their real names,” he wrote earlier this month. “Real name does not mean your legal name. Your real name is whatever you go by and what your friends call you. If your friends all call you by a nickname and you want to use that name on Facebook, you should be able to do that.”
But the site continues to block profiles for fake-sounding names, particularly in the Native American community, disable profiles of drag queens, and other LGBT users because their account names don’t match their IDs.
Scout, a transgender man and LGBT health researcher, was recently locked out of Facebook and had to provide multiple forms of government ID proving that his legal and chosen name was “Scout” without a first name.
“It’s a really weird social disruption,” Scout previously told ThinkProgress. “It makes you realize how many people you don’t have emails or phone numbers for because you have a Facebook relationship. You have a large group of people you’re talking with that you’re suddenly cut off from. If this were happening to more people, they’d be up in arms.”
Facebook later apologized for the matter, telling ThinkProgress “We let Scout down.”
Facebook is currently evaluating the German authority’s order and can’t comment on what, if any, future legal action might be taken. But the company has been down this road before, in 2013, when a German court ruled that Facebook’s real name policy among others were in accordance with European privacy law.
To operate in Europe, companies have to adhere to an overarching data protection law that each country has adopted in different versions. Facebook’s headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland and therefore has to adhere to the Irish data laws but can still operate throughout Europe. That arrangement previously sparked fierce criticism from Facebook’s European policy director Richard Allan, who wrote in a Financial Times op-ed, that “Facebook’s costs would increase, and people in Europe would notice new features arriving more slowly, or not at all,” if the company had to adhere to the nuances in each country’s privacy laws.