According to the media group RND, Katarina Barley has asked Facebook’s chief executive in a letter to strictly implement privacy by default settings and to set up an inner mechanism to defend users from misuse by third parties like Cambridge Analytica, as well as to be transparent for users by giving them more control, also saying that allegations of the improper use of data for millions of people is unacceptable.
Earlier in April, Barley accused Facebook of unethical behavior and said the social media titan should face a strong European response over a huge data leak involving millions more users than was initially thought.
"Facebook is a network of intransparency. Ethical convictions have fallen victim to commercial interests," Katarina Barley said.
About 310,000 Facebook users in Germany are reportedly among the 87 million people whose personal data was inappropriately distributed to British political consultancy company Cambridge Analytica.
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Facebook has admitted that Cambridge Analytica gathered the personal information of up to 87 million users of the social media site without the permission from the users.
The firm harvested the information from social media accounts to generate a mechanism that would predict and influence the reaction of voters.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the users and assured to improve the security situation, however, he later acknowledged that it might take several years to fix the network's privacy issues.