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, following revelations over the use of its data by the election consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
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.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg has reported that the US Federal Trade Commission is to look at whether Facebook violated an agreement over its use of consumers’ personal data. The agreement was reached in 2011 following previous concerns about its handling of privacy issues.
The call by MPs follows revelations by the Observer, Channel 4 News and the New York Times of how data from the social media site was deployed by Cambridge Analytica without users’ consent.
They prompted the UK’s information commissioner to seek an urgent court warrant to enter the London headquarters of Cambridge Analytica after the firm was caught in an undercover sting boasting about entrapping politicians, using honey traps and running fake news campaigns.
Elizabeth Denham said she had also demanded that Facebook halt a data audit of Cambridge Analytica, saying it could prejudice her investigation.
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.
An ICO spokesman said the commission had issued a demand to access CA’s records and data.
“Cambridge Analytica has not responded to the commissioner by the deadline provided; therefore, the information commissioner is seeking a warrant to obtain information and access to systems and evidence related to her investigation,” the spokesman said.
Facebook had agreed to stop its search of Cambridge Analytica’s premises at the commissioner’s request, the spokesman said.
“Such a search would potentially compromise a regulatory investigation.”
On Wednesday about 10 crates filled with files and documents were carried out of the building where Cambridge Analytica is based and loaded into a rental delivery van, the Huffington Post reported. Two men loading the van declined to comment when asked if they worked for the company.
Meanwhile, Collins said it was extraordinary that Facebook’s investigators had been in the CA office and 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.”
The Channel 4 News investigation, broadcast on Monday, comes two days after the Observer reported Cambridge Analytica had gained unauthorised access to tens of millions of Facebook profiles in one of the social media company’s biggest data breach