Experts argue that because Facebook didn't get consent from users, it may have violated US and EU laws.
The social network says it unintentionally collected the contacts and is now deleting them.
Experts speaking to Business Insider on Thursday said that they believed Facebook's actions had potentially violated multiple laws — including a US FTC consent decree, the EU General Data Protection Regulation — the European Union's data privacy regulation — and while there would likely be a strong defence for Facebook, perhaps even the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act , a US criminal statute involving computer fraud and abuse.
Dina Srinivasan, a Yale Law graduate who recently wrote a paper called"The Antitrust Case Against Facebook," argued that the company's behavior was potentially illegal"on the grounds that Facebook was deceiving consumers when it came to their data and privacy. This can be a violation of 3 things. Federal antitrust laws. Unfair competition laws which every state has a version of. The FTC consent decree.
"It is especially problematic because it was not just data of the user being verified that was ... processed, but the personal data of their contacts too," London-based data protection researcher and Alan Turing institute fellow Michael Veale said in an email.
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