Legal dispute over the German government's Facebook fan page continues
No end in sight to the data protection dispute between the BfDI and the Federal Press Office. The authority is appealing – to "end legal uncertainties".
The bone of contention: the German government's Facebook page.
(Image: heise medien/Screenshot)
The dispute over the admissibility of a federal government Facebook page under data protection law continues. The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI), Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, has lodged an appeal against the recent ruling of the Cologne Administrative Court with the Higher Administrative Court in MĂĽnster. This was announced by the authority in Bonn on Friday.
Kelber wanted to ban fan page
In the proceedings brought by the German government and Facebook against Specht-Riemenschneider's predecessor Ulrich Kelber, the data protection authority lost at first instance before the Cologne Administrative Court. In February 2023, Kelber had prohibited the Federal Press Office from operating the Facebook page, partly because the Federal Government did not have effective user consent under data protection law.
The Federal Government nevertheless continued to operate the page and eventually filed a lawsuit. The Federal Press Office argued that, on the one hand, the Federal Government was dependent on the use of social media such as Facebook and, on the other hand, was not responsible for the data processing by the provider. The Cologne judges largely agreed with this in the first proceedings.
Videos by heise
Ending legal uncertainty
With the appeal to the Higher Administrative Court in MĂĽnster, the proceedings are likely to continue for several more years. As the outcome of the proceedings is difficult to predict in terms of both time and law, according to the BfDI's press release, the supervisory authority has today published guidelines on social media use for federal authorities.
"I would like to put an end to the legal uncertainty surrounding the use of social media by federal public bodies," explained Specht-Riemenschneider. "Of course, we can see how important it has become for the state to communicate on social networks. However, the conditions that apply to this are still completely unclear and can only be determined either by the legislator or by a final court ruling."
(mma)
