Use privacy software if you want to be safe from Facebook, warns watchdog 

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A Belgian watchdog has urged all Internet users to download privacy software specifically to shield themselves from Facebook's grasp.

The social network has been under fire for the ways in which it tracks user and non-user behaviour online, without consent, most recently becoming the target of a Europe-wide lawsuit headed up by activist Max Schrems.

It was revealed in April that 25,000 people had already signed up to be a part of that lawsuit, which argues Facebook has been breaching EU data protection law. Individual regulators have been investigating whether or not this is the case for years, and in April Facebook confessed to tracking non-users using cookies (something for which consent must be sought if related to advertising, according to EU law). The social network blamed it on a bug.

That admission only came about when the same watchdog, the Belgian Privacy Commission (BPC), revealed it in an earlier report, the findings of which its current recommendations have been based upon. The report also found that Facebook tracked anyone that uses the "Like" button via social plugins, available on an estimated 13 million sites, and the site tracks users that have logged out of the social network.

The authority has recommended that Facebook alter the way the plugins work, that websites put in extra protections for their visitors when plugins are present, and that the general public use privacy software that will circumvent the problem completely. The latter recommendation suggests the BPC has little trust in Facebook changing its operations any time soon.

For its part, Facebook has always maintained that it abides by EU data protection law. It does, however, defer to the Irish data protection commissioner rather than Europe's, like many other US tech giants based in Ireland.

The pressure mounting on the likes of Google and Facebook to explain their tracking operations in recent years has been growing a source of tension between US and Europe, with President Obama publicly attacking the latter earlier this year for using data protection as an excuse for furthering commercial interests. He told Re/Code: "We have owned the Internet. Our companies have created it, expanded it, perfected it in ways that they can’t compete. And often times what is portrayed as high-minded positions on issues sometimes is just designed to carve out some of their commercial interests."

Undeterred, the European Union—spurred on by recommendations made by former EU Commissioner Viviane Reding—decided on creating a European-wide data protection body earlier this year. It would be designed to put an end to citizens of individual member states having to file data protection complaints in the country where a company is based. Instead, members have the option of filing in their own country. That is what Schrems has done, filing the European-wide lawsuit targeting Facebook in his home city of Vienna. The move, if it goes ahead, is set to have a huge impact on US tech giants based in Ireland.

This post originally appeared on Wired UK.