Audit found privacy practice sufficient: Facebook

This March 5, 2013 photo shows hundreds of images of people's faces taken from Facebook as part of a mixed media installation in "The Public Private" exhibit at Parsons The New School for Design in New York. The exhibit seeks to explore the boundaries and gray areas of online privacy, surveillance and data collection in the age of Facebook and Google.

Facebook says an independent audit found its privacy practices sufficient during a six-month assessment period that followed a settlement with federal regulators.

Facebook Inc. said it submitted the findings to the Federal Trade Commission on Monday. The audit was a required part of the social networking company’s settlement with the FTC last summer. The settlement resolved charges that Facebook exposed details of its users’ lives without getting the required legal consent.

Facebook provided a copy of its letter to the FTC, along with a redacted copy of the auditor’s letter, to The Associated Press on Wednesday. The redacted portion contained trade secret information and did not alter the auditor’s findings, the company said. The audit covered written policies as well as its data.

“We’re encouraged by this confirmation that the controls set out in our privacy programme are working as intended,” said Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer for policy, in an emailed statement.