Government Selects Facebook Critical Lawyer to Head Privacy Watch | Scientific and technological news

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The government has announced plans to reform UK privacy laws as well as its choice of the next person to head the country’s privacy watchdog – a lawyer who criticized Facebook as ” pathological liars in moral bankruptcy ”.

John Edwards, a New Zealand lawyer and the country’s current privacy commissioner, is known to speak out against the social media company in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attacks which were broadcast on its platforms.

In a rant on Twitter, he wrote, “These are pathological liars in moral bankruptcy who allow the genocide (Myanmar), [and] facilitate foreign weakening of democratic institutions, ”referring to the persecution of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar military leaders on the platform and Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.

He accused Facebook of allowing “live streaming of suicides, rapes and murders” and criticized the company for continuing “to host and publish video of the mosque attack, to allow advertisers to target “Jewish haters” and other hate market segments, and to refuse to accept any responsibility for any content or damage. “

He then deleted those tweets “because of the toxic and misinformed volume of traffic they caused,” he said, and added a link to a radio interview in which he expressed his belief that if Facebook couldn’t control the content delivered through Facebook Live, it would have to “Turn it off completely.”

Image: Oliver Dowden, the digital secretary, said he wanted the UK to take a ‘less European approach’ to privacy laws

Mr Edwards was confirmed as the government’s preferred candidate for the post of new Information Commissioner by Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden in an interview with The Telegraph newspaper. He is expected to replace Elizabeth Denham, a Canadian who has often been criticized for failing to effectively tackle social media giants.

If appointed, which is considered likely, his tenure will coincide with the government’s plans to reform Britain’s privacy laws, which were passed when the country was part of the European Union, after Oliver Dowden pledged Britain to take a “slightly less European approach” to privacy.

Speaking to reporters in March, Mr Dowden said of the search for a new Information Commissioner: “I’m looking for someone who doesn’t just focus on data through a negative lens of the way in which we stop the damage, but which also generates growth opportunities, both through public policy, but also by creating opportunities for businesses. ”

On a related note, Mr Dowden told The Telegraph that the government will launch a consultation on reforming the GDPR and improving the UK’s data protection regime, with a particular focus on simplification of compliance for businesses.

Highlights include reducing annoying pop-up banners and cookie permission requests that websites often present to browsers, even when they are simply collecting audience measurement data rather than personal information.

Changes to the UK’s legal regime for data processing pose an economic challenge as new countries the UK aims to enter into agreements with – in the short term, including US, South Korea , Australia, Singapore, Colombia and Dubai – have very different data protection regimes than the EU.

Brazil, India, Kenya and Indonesia are the other countries with which the government hopes to sign medium-term agreements.

Although the European Commission has ruled that the UK’s data protection regime is largely identical to its own and therefore allowed free data transfers between the two countries, experts warn that reforms and trade deals could question this assessment.

Eduardo Ustaran, who co-leads the privacy practice at the law firm Hogan Lovells, said: “The appointment of John Edwards as the next Information Commissioner is a vote for pragmatism and pragmatism for the future of data protection regulation. “

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