Facebook, facing an onslaught of privacy-related controversies and a growing push for regulation, has in the last month hired three high-profile tech industry critics and commentators to beef up its privacy policy team in Washington, D.C.
A Facebook spokesman said the hires, who come from Access Now, a digital consumer rights group, privacy and free speech nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Open Technology Institute, reflected the company’s desire to bring in people with new points of view to help it solve privacy problems and improve future privacy-related products, tools and processes. The company said the privacy policy team continues to grow, but would not say how many people work in the group.