Facebook exec says tech giant ‘has a lot to answer to’

A Facebook executive admitted Wednesday that the tech giant “has a lot to answer to” in the wake of a scandal that allegedly saw user data mishandled.

Speaking to about 1,500 marketers at the company’s Canadian summit in Toronto, vice-president of global marketing solutions for North America Nada Stirratt said recent allegations that the data of up to 50 million Facebook users was misused by analytics firm Cambridge Analytica are “really concerning” and “have raised serious questions.”

For weeks, the scandal has had Facebook on the defensive over their data policies, with social media campaigns calling on users to delete their accounts and suggestions that Cambridge Analytica used the data to target voters in the 2016 U.S. election with political advertisements based on their psychological profile.

“We are ultimately responsible to ensure that things like that do not happen on our platform,” said Stirratt on Wednesday. “We let people down and we are deeply sorry for that.”

She said Facebook is “fully investigating” Cambridge Analytica and any other parties involved with the scandal.

Those investigations will extend beyond the incident to any other parties that might have mishandled information available through the platform, Stirratt vowed, adding that if past abuse is found, the company will take “swift action.”