Facebook is under investigation in Ireland after being accused of collecting data from users who have deleted their accounts. The social network may face up to €100,000 ($137,750 USD) in fines if alleged claims are true.

The audit of Facebook's Ireland offices come after an Austrian law student discovered information from his deleted pages were held by company. 

The student, Max Schrems, 24 requested a copy of his information from Facebook after attending a lecture by Facebook's executives at Santa Clara University in California according to The Guardian. 

From the Guardian:

Among the 1,200 pages of data Schrems was sent were rejected friend requests, incidences where he "defriended" someone, as well as a log of all Facebook chats he had ever had. There was also a list of photos he had detagged of himself, the names of everyone he had ever "poked", which events he had attended, which he hadn't replied to, and much more besides.

The information was broken down into 57 categories, including likes, log-ons (a list of when he logged on and which IP address he used) and emails, which included some email addresses Schrems had never personally uploaded to the site but which he assumes were discerned from another user's profile.

After discovering the information, Schrems launched several complaints to the Irish data protection commissioner. 

In response, a spokesperson for Facebook said it is Facebook's policy to provide user request for personal information and the company followed said policies. 

More from the Guardian: 

"This is clearly not personal data, and Irish data protection law rightly places some valuable and reasonable limits on the data that has to be provided."

"As part of offering people messaging services, we enable people to delete messages they receive from their inbox and messages they send from their sent folder.

"However, people can't delete a message they send from the recipient's inbox or a message you receive from the sender's sent folder. This is the way every message service ever invented works.

"We think it's also consistent with people's expectations. We look forward to making these and other clarifications to the Irish DPA."

If audits from the data protection commissioner confirm the company was breaching personal data law, the commission can offer changes to protect users. If Facebook does not comply, legal action can be taking by the commission. 

From ZDNet: 

If the company fails to appeal and still refuses to make the changes, the DPC would then have the power to ask the courts to fine Facebook up to €3,000 (£2,600). However, the courts would also have the power to fine the company up to €100,000 if they are particularly displeased.

Users may request copies of their personal account information from Facebook here. 

Read earlier coverage of this story here: 

http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/10/facebooks-latest-privacy-problems

Reach Jacob Chung here.