Facebook has received backlash over how it uses personal data in recent years, and now the company just hired one of its biggest privacy critics.
On Tuesday, Facebook announced it was hiring three privacy law activists, including former Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Nate Cardozo; attorney Robyn Greene, who previously worked with the Open Technology Institute; and Nathan White, who currently works at the advocacy group Access Now, the website reported.
Cardozo—who once wrote that Facebook’s “business model depends on our collective confusion and apathy about privacy”—will take a privacy role working on WhatsApp.
“We think it’s important to bring in new perspectives to the privacy team at Facebook, including people who can look at our products, policies and processes with a critical eye,” Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer, told Ars Technica.
The hire comes at the perfect time, as Facebook recently announced its plans to merge Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp leaving some questioning whether user privacy and data will be at risk.
Greene and White will both work for Facebook out of the company’s Washington, D.C., office.
“We hope that the new hires we are making will challenge us to build better approaches to privacy in the future and we’re excited to have them onboard,” Sherman said.
