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New Zealand Is The Latest Country To Call For Privacy Protections On Facebook

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Kyle Perisic Contributor
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New Zealand’s privacy watchdog has joined a number of other countries in demanding more privacy regulations on social media, especially on Facebook, Reuters reported Thursday.

Watchdog groups in Canada, the European UnionFranceGermany and the U.S. have all called out Facebook for its privacy policies and have demanded more be done by it to protect users’ information.

New Zealand Privacy Commissioner John Edwards said parliament is considering increasing enforcement provisions as part of privacy protection laws that are currently being rewritten.

Facebook sparred with New Zealand over whether the country had jurisdiction to give up the information the social media giant had on New Zealand citizens in March and refused to turn in that data, saying that New Zealand is governed by Irish privacy law.

“What we did with Facebook is issue a legally binding demand and they just ignored and thumbed their nose at it and refused to comply,” Edwards told Reuters in an interview.

“I just wanted to explain to people how they could re-assert their autonomy and their control over their own personal information,” he added.

Papua New Guinea took an extreme measure by banning Facebook for its citizens all together, which is expected to last for a month, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported Tuesday. (RELATED: Country Of 8 Million To Ban Facebook For A Month, Says Report) 

“The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed,” said Papua New Guinea’s Communications Minister Sam Basil. “This will allow genuine people with real identities to use the social network responsibly.”

About 2.5 million New Zealanders have a Facebook account. New Zealand’s total population is approximately 4.5 million.

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