For ‘highly sensitive', read ‘highly incriminating'

Facebook is taking the European Commission to court to try and stop them getting access to internal documents as part of their investigations into whether Facebook is breaching competition laws.

“We are cooperating with the commission and would expect to give them hundreds of thousands of documents,” said Tim Lamb, Facebook’s competition lawyer.

“The exceptionally broad nature of the commission’s requests means we would be required to turn over predominantly irrelevant documents that have nothing to do with the commission’s investigations, including highly sensitive personal information such as employees’ medical information, personal financial documents, and private information about family members of employees.”

A Facebook spokesperson stressed the company is not trying to hold up the investigation, saying the firm has been very forthcoming with information so far.

He said Brussels’ request for any documents which include the phrases “big question”, “shut down” and “not good for us” could even force Facebook to hand over confidential security assessments of its California headquarters.

My impression is that it’s Facebook’s argument here that is ‘exceptionally broad’.