Facebook officials to face Europe’s inquiries on scandal
Facebook officials will be traveling — or at least making phone calls — to Europe to respond to concerns that the data of as many as 2.7 million people in the European Union might have been shared with a consulting firm that worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is planing a call with the EU’s justice commissioner, while Facebok’s top technology officer is expected to appear before a British parliament committee and its deputy privacy chief will head to Italy.
The company has been refining its response in the wake of revelations that data on as many as 87 million people, most of them in the U.S., may have been improperly shared with research firm Cambridge Analytica. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who will testify at congressional hearings next week, has changed tack by communicating directly with the press in interviews and a group conference call.
“It’s clear that data of Europeans have been exposed to a huge risk and I am not sure if Facebook took all the necessary steps to implement change,” EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said in an email Friday. “This story is too important, too shocking, to treat it as business as usual.”
Sandberg sent a letter late Thursday to the EU trying to explain the steps taken to protect data.
Her response isn’t sufficient yet for the EU, Jourova said, adding that she will speak with Sandberg about “how they intend to ensure transparency and respect the rules of our democratic debate and how they plan to change” once new EU privacy rules are in place May 25.
Sandberg and Jourova are scheduled to have a phone call early next week, Jourova’s spokesman Christian Wigand said. EU data protection regulators from around the 28-nation bloc will meet in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss their investigations, on which the British watchdog has taken the lead.
The British Information Commissioner’s Office said that Facebook has been cooperating with regulators, but that it is too early to say whether the policy changes are sufficient.
Other EU privacy regulators also weighed in on the data scandal, with Italian authorities saying on Thursday that they will meet April 24 with Stephen Deadman, Facebook’s deputy chief global privacy officer, as part of their investigation into the scandal.
The chief of Italy’s Competition Authority said Friday the watchdog has also opened an investigation on Facebook’s potential unfair practices.
Giovanni Pitruzzella said in a television interviewthat the main focus of the case will be on the misleading message the social media company passes on to its users.
“Consumers are not in the position to know that the company passes on its data also for commercial use,” he said.
A British parliament committee investigating the impact of social media on recent elections said Friday that former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix and former director Brittany Kaiser will be witnesses in its inquiry into “fake news.” It said that Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer had also been called as a witness.