In what possibly is an upshot of the 22 complaints that an Austria-based group - known as Europe - recently made against Facebook the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Irish data protection commissioner will reportedly scrutinize the way the popular social network handles the personal data of the users.

While a privacy audit of the Facebook activities outside the US and Canada will be carried out by the Irish data protection commissioner, the FTC will largely look into Facebook's the alleged "frictionless sharing" of reading, listening and viewing activity.

Calling for the investigations into Facebook activities, a privacy activists and researchers' consortium - including EPIC, the Center for Digital Democracy and Consumer Action had written in their 14-page letter to the ITC, expressing the concern that even after users had logged out of their accounts, the social network still made use of cookies for tracking the browsing activity of the users.

While the ITC and the Irish data protection commissioner are to initiate their investigations against Facebook soon, privacy regulators in the UK, Germany and Ireland are already investigating a facial recognition feature which was launched by the social network in June this year.

About the investigation, Facebook said that its headquarters in Ireland were managing the social network's adherence to EU data protection regulations and that the company was "in regular dialogue" with the Irish data protection commissioner, Facebook said that it intends demonstrating its "commitment to the appropriate handling of user data as a part of this routine audit."