APROKO ALERT: Facebook CAN track you even when you are offline: Site wins Belgian privacy case over following logged out users

The social media site has won a legal battle against the Belgian data protection authority over tracking its users while they are not logged into Facebook.

Originally, the regulator had won its case and ordered the social network to stop tracking non-members when they visited publicly available Facebook pages.

But the Brussels Appeals Court dismissed the case, on the grounds that the regulator has no jurisdiction over Facebook Inc, which has its European headquarters in Ireland.

The authority was trying to stop the social network from tracking the online activities of non-Facebook users in Belgium who visit the social network's pages.

But the ruling marks a victory for the US company, which staunchly maintained only the Irish Data Protection Commissioner has jurisdiction over how it uses Europeans' data.

'We are pleased with the court's decision and look forward to bringing all our services back online for people in Belgium,' a Facebook spokeswoman said.

Facebook has had run-ins with a number of European privacy watchdogs over its use of people's data.

Belgium's data protection regulator took Facebook to court a year ago, accusing it of trampling on EU privacy law by tracking people without a Facebook account without their consent.

The court ruled in favour of the regulator and ordered Facebook to stop tracking non-Facebook users when they visited a Facebook page or face a 250,000 euros ($277,000) daily fine.

Facebook appealed the ruling.

In the meantime it said it would comply and stop using the so-called 'datr' cookie which it places on people's browsers when they visit a Facebook.com site or click a Facebook 'Like' button on other websites, allowing it to track the online activities of that browser.

The Belgian regulator said it would look into launching a final appeal with the Court of Cassation, which can throw out previous judgments but not deliver new ones.

'Today's decision simply and purely means that the Belgian citizen cannot obtain the protection of his private life through the courts and tribunals when it concerns foreign actors,' the regulator said in a statement.

It added that the Court of Cassation had previously overruled the Court of Appeal on matters of jurisdiction over foreign companies.

'Thus the citizen is also exposed to massive violations of private life,' said Willem Debeuckelaere, president of the Belgian Privacy Commission.

The Brussels appeals court also threw out the Belgian Privacy Commission's claim that the case was urgent and required expedited procedure.

IS FACEBOOK MESSENGER REALLY PRIVATE?

You might think messages you send privately through Facebook Messenger are safe from anyone's view, unless they managed to break into your account.

But links that are privately sent through the Messenger app can be viewed by anyone, a hacker has recently discovered.

The method requires running a script of computer code, but otherwise is relatively simple to execute.

This flaw was discovered by a Belgian ethical hacker named Inti De Ceukelaire, and he described how it works in an article on Medium.

Whenever you send a link to a webpage on Facebook, if it is the first time that URL has been shared the website will store information on it using its ‘crawler’ when it is clicked on.

This is publicly explained on Facebook's developer page.

‘The first time someone shares a link, the Facebook crawler will scrape the HTML at that URL to gather, cache and display info about the content on Facebook like a title, description, and thumbnail image,’ the description says.

When the link is shared again, it takes this information from the database, according Mr De Ceukelaire.

When Facebook stores information, it gives it a specific number.

If someone knows this identification number, they can request this information using the Facebook API - a way developers can connect with Facebook.

‘This will return the corresponding information only if you have permission to access it,’ Mr De Ceukelaire says.

But he began to mess around with the API and found if he wrote a script asking for a URL it would return links, even those shared privately.

The hacker began to mess around with the API and found if he wrote a script asking for a URL it would return links, even those shared privately. He wrote a code to return a series of links, pictured