Facebook founder is called to give evidence to committee of MPs after revelations over use of data by Cambridge Analytica
MPs have summoned Mark Zuckerberg to appear before a select committee investigating fake news and accused his company of misleading them at a previous hearing.
The Facebook founder has been called to give evidence to the digital, culture, media and sport committee after revelations over the use of its data by the election consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
The company has also come under the spotlight in the US, after an investigation by the Observer, Channel 4 News and the New York Times revealed that 50m user profiles had been accessed and harvested for data.
In a letter to Zuckerberg, the committee’s chair, Damian Collins, wrote that Facebook had been repeatedly asked about how companies acquired and held on to user data from its site, and whether data had been taken without users’ consent.
“Your officials’ answers have consistently understated this risk and have been misleading to the committee,” he wrote. “It is now time to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process … Given your commitment at the start of the new year to ‘fixing’ Facebook, I hope that this representative will be you.”
The committee said Facebook had failed to provide follow-up evidence
after the last hearing and that this week’s revelations had raised new
questions for the inquiry. On Wednesday it will take evidence from a
former Facebook operations manager, Sandy Parakilas.
The letter gave a deadline of 26 March for a response.
The Facebook founder has been called to give evidence to the digital, culture, media and sport committee after revelations over the use of its data by the election consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
The company has also come under the spotlight in the US, after an investigation by the Observer, Channel 4 News and the New York Times revealed that 50m user profiles had been accessed and harvested for data.
In a letter to Zuckerberg, the committee’s chair, Damian Collins, wrote that Facebook had been repeatedly asked about how companies acquired and held on to user data from its site, and whether data had been taken without users’ consent.
“Your officials’ answers have consistently understated this risk and have been misleading to the committee,” he wrote. “It is now time to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process … Given your commitment at the start of the new year to ‘fixing’ Facebook, I hope that this representative will be you.”
The letter gave a deadline of 26 March for a response.
“The president believes that Americans’ privacy should be protected. You know, if Congress wants to look into the matter or other agencies want to look into the matter, we welcome that,” the deputy press secretary Raj Shah told Fox News. “Without knowing the specifics, it’s difficult to tell whether an individual should testify but we do support the privacy of American citizens.”
Representatives of Facebook are expected to brief Senate and White House aides on Wednesday, and the US Federal Trade Commission is reported to be looking at whether it violated an agreement over its use of consumers’ personal data. The agreement was reached in 2011 after previous concerns about Facebook’s handling of privacy issues.
The inquiries follow revelations of how data from Facebook was deployed by Cambridge Analytica (CA) without users’ consent, and of boasts by CA to undercover reporters about the role it could play in political campaigns.
The UK’s information commissioner has announced her intention to investigate CA, but on Tuesday she was still awaiting a warrant to enter its central London offices. A Huffington Post reporter said he had seen about 10 crates of documents being removed from the building, which is shared with other tenants.
The Information Commissioner’s Office said it wasn’t responsible for removing any files.
George Bowden (@georgebowden)Crates filled with documents have been seen being removed from the same building as Cambridge Analytica's HQ. Their provenance cannot be verified. A delivery person did not answer questions, while a van driver said: "No comment". pic.twitter.com/mBPEYZxmQwMarch 20, 2018
Cybersecurity consultants from Stroz Friedberg, who had been engaged by Facebook to do the audit, were at CA’s office in London on Monday evening when the ICO asked them to leave so the authorities could pursue their own investigation.
Collins said it was extraordinary that Facebook’s investigators had been in the CA office, and he questioned their motives.
“We were told this last night and I don’t think the information commissioner was aware of that at that time,” he told the BBC. “This is a matter for the authorities. Facebook sent in data analysts and lawyers who they appointed; what they intended to do there, who knows?
“The concern would have been: were they removing information or evidence which could have been vital to the investigation? It’s right they stood down but it’s astonishing they were there in the first place.”
In a statement on Tuesday, CA said it had been in touch with the Information Commissioner’s Office since February 2017, when it had hosted its team in its London office.
“Since early last year we have subsequently cooperated with the ICO on multiple lines of inquiry, including most recently on the Facebook data and derivatives that we received from GSR, the research company that we engaged in good faith to legally supply data for research.
“On this point we have offered to share with the ICO all the information that it asked for and for the ICO to attend our office voluntarily, subject to our agreeing the scope of the inspection.”
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