A Dutch court won’t take Facebook’s word it has deleted data that could identify the person behind a now-deleted pseudonymous account from which a sex tape was posted, and wants the company to allow an independent expert to scour its systems for the missing information.

The ruling appears to mean that Facebook and other sites must retain account data if they think there is something fishy going on, and that is at odds with Dutch privacy law, which requires Facebook to store as little information as possible, for as little time as possible, said Menno Weij, an IT lawyer uninvolved in the case.

On Thursday, the Amsterdam District Court ordered Facebook to hand over information that could help a 21-year-old woman find out who posted a sex video of her to the social network. If Facebook cannot produce the data, it must allow an independent expert to check if the data is indeed untraceable.

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