Facebook has suspended the use of the 'Election Day Reminder' feature for all EU elections until concerns raised by the Data Protection Commission, here have been addressed.
The social media organisation's feature alerted people that there was an election or referendum happening in their country and was aimed at reminding people to vote.
But Ireland's Data Protection Commission, which is in charge of regulating Facebook in Europe, notified the company that the feature raised a number of data protection concerns, ahead of the General Election here, last February.
It said there were concerns particularly around the transparency for users about how personal data is collected when interacting with the feature as well as how the information was subsequently used by Facebook.
In a statement the Data Protection Commission says it looked for a number of remedial actions from Facebook.
But it says it was not possible to put these in place in advance of the Irish election.
The statement says that because of this Facebook decided not to launch the election day reminder during the election.
It adds that the social media organisation has confirmed that the 'Election Day Reminder' feature will not be activated during any EU elections pending a response to the DPC.
Facebook said following concerns raised by the Irish Data Protection Commission around whether they give users enough information about how the Election Day reminder feature works, it had paused this feature in the EU for the time being.
In a statement it said it believed that the reminder is a positive feature which reminds people to vote and helps them find their polling place.
It said it is committed to processing people's information lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent manner.
Facebook says it will continue working with the Data Protection Commission to address their concerns.
