The popular social networking site Facebook is not doing enough to protect the personal information it gets from subscribers, and it gives users confusing and incomplete information about privacy matters, Canada’s privacy commissioner said yesterday.

“We found serious privacy gaps in the way [Facebook] operates,” Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said in a report on an investigation into Facebook.

The report said Facebook violates Canada’s privacy laws by keeping the personal information of people who have deactivated their accounts in its databases indefinitely.

It provides confusing information about privacy practices, for example showing users how to deactivate accounts but not how to delete them.

Facebook has 200 million active users, including about 12 million in Canada.