Nov. 8 (UPI) — Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg declined an invitation to testify before British and Canadian lawmakers about the social media giant’s data privacy.
Facebook’s head of U.K. public policy Rebecca Stimson and head of Canada public policy Kevin Chan, responded to the request by British Member of Parliament Damian Collins and Canadian Member of Parliament Bob Zimmer in a letter released Wednesday, informing the lawmakers it isn’t possible for Zuckerberg “to be available to all Parliaments.”
“While he is unable to accept your invitation we continue to fully recognize the seriousness of these issues and remain committed to working with you to provide any additional relevant information you require for your respective inquiries,” they wrote.
In their letter to Facebook in October, Collins and Zimmer said that Zuckerberg chose to send “less senior representatives” to their countries despite agreeing to appear before the U.S. Congress and Senate as well as the European Parliament.
They added their countries have requested “evidence from a Facebook executive with sufficient authority to give an accurate account of recent failures of process, including the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal and subsequent data breaches.”
Despite Zuckerberg’s decision against appearing before either legislative body, Stimson and Chan said they believed Facebook has been compliant in responding to requests from foreign governments.
They noted the social media company has provided multiple written submissions for inquiries into the Cambridge Analytica scandal and that senior Facebook officials have given evidence to the British Committee’s session in Washington and to British Parliament. In Canada, they noted they had “similarly sent senior privacy and public policy representatives” and followed up to update their work.
“We have and will continue to cooperate fully with relevant regulators,” they wrote. “As you will be aware, the Information Commissioner in the UK has now publicly confirmed that her investigation has found no evidence to indicate that UK Facebook users’ data (or indeed the data of any Facebook users outside of the US, including in Canada) was ever shared with Cambridge Analytica by Dr. Aleksandr Kogan. This also accords with our understanding, based on the evidence available to us.”
