Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM

A day after Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's grilling on privacy from members of the European Parliament in Brussels, the social network has announced that it has filled a position that could be integral to the company's data privacy practices in the EU and beyond.

Stephen Deadman, who is currently the company's global deputy chief privacy officer, will step in as Facebook's data protection officer starting on Friday. He'll also be DPO for Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp.

Stephen Deadman. Courtesy photo.

Companies like Facebook are required to have a data protection officer under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, which goes into effect Friday. The GDPR is a wide-ranging new set of rules that companies processing EU citizens' data must follow, or else face massive fines.