Security News > 2020 > February > CERN Physics Lab Drops Facebook Over Data Concerns
Europe's physics lab CERN on Wednesday said it had stopped using a Facebook team-chat application because of concerns about handing over data to the US tech giant.
CERN said it had wound up its Facebook Workplace account on January 31 after the US firm gave it the choice of either paying to use the service or sharing data.
"Losing control of our data was unacceptable," CERN said in a blog on January 28, confirmed to AFP by spokeswoman Anais Rassat on Wednesday.
CERN is home to the Large Hadron Collider - a giant lab in a tunnel straddling the French-Swiss border that is the world's most powerful proton smasher.
Facebook has faced a series of privacy scandals in recent years, including over the hijacking of personal data on millions of users by a British consultancy developing voter profiles for Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.