The techniques used to collect user data have come under fire recently and have had much media attention.  The EU commission will be ensuring an increase of data protection and make it possible for uses after accessing by the Facebook login to permanently delete information from the site for good.

The strategy release today says: "The strategy, which was seen by EU website EurActiv, says people ‘should be able to give their informed consent to the processing of their personal data’ when they go online. They should also be able to permanently delete photos and other information on social networking sites. The strategy is to lead next year to an overhaul of the EU's 15-year old data protection legislation."

"Ways of collecting personal data have become increasingly elaborated and less easily detectable. For example the use of sophisticated tools allows economic operators to better target individuals thanks to the monitoring of their behaviour."

We raised issues last week where it was reported Facebook information from profiles was being passed to third party companies.  While advertisers using the browser history of an individual was highlighted in the report.  The use of cookies has been dealt with in the EU's ePrivacy regulation, a practice that is very common in the industry.

"Citizens should be kept informed of ‘what their rights are if they want to access, rectify or delete their data,’ according to the paper"