German ministries and departments have received a letter from Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber urging them to stop using Facebook pages by the end of 2021, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported. Negotiations between the press and information department of the German federal government and the network administration have yielded no results. “Facebook is not ready for any changes to its data processing policy,” Kelber wrote. Therefore, “the departments and divisions that maintain Facebook pages cannot comply with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).” The German federal government Facebook page has over 1 million subscribers.
The GDPR was adopted in April 2016 and became mandatory for all EU member states in May 2018.The Regulation gave EU residents control over their own personal data and unified data regulation within the EU. Fines for violation of the GDPR can be as high as 20 million euros, or 4% of the annual turnover of the violating company.
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