Ottawa - The Privacy Commissioner of Canada ordered Facebook to comply with Canada's privacy laws 30 days ago. The social networking site with 200 million users has to prove to Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart it has done something to close the serious privacy gaps her office pointed out in its July 16 report.

If Stoddart finds Facebook's response unsatisfactory she has two weeks to get a court order from the Federal Court in Ottawa to mandate Facebook to amend its business practices so it would meet privacy standards set by the country's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

The first step Stoddart will take is to review the steps taken by Facebook. The case is an offshoot of a complaint filed by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic over Facebook's violations of the law. Among the alleged violations are the confusing or incomplete way Facebook gives information to members about its privacy practices and its policy to keep personal members' information indefinitely even if they have closed their accounts.

Stoddart's report recommended several measures for Facebook to comply with Canada's privacy law. It include technological steps to ensure that 950,000 third-party developers spread in 180 nations who create Facebook applications could only access user information they really need to run a specific application and to stop the disclosure of personal information of user's friends who are not using the different applications.

Canada has 12 million Facebook users.