The chair of the House of Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee has written to Mark Zuckerberg “asking” him to give evidence about how personal data leaked from Facebook to be abused by Cambridge Analytica. Facebook shares dropped a further 3% Tuesday (so far) on top of the 6.7% drop on Monday. The most serious accusation for Zuckerberg are the “misleading statements” by his staff to the Committee.
Last month, Facebook’s UK director of policy, Simon Milner, told British MPs on a select committee inquiry into fake news, chaired by Conservative MP Damian Collins, that Cambridge Analytica did not have Facebook data. The official Hansard extract reads:
Christian Matheson (MP for Chester): “Have you ever passed any user information over to Cambridge Analytica or any of its associated companies?”
Simon Milner: “No.”
Matheson: “But they do hold a large chunk of Facebook’s user data, don’t they?”
Milner: “No. They may have lots of data, but it will not be Facebook user data. It may be data about people who are on Facebook that they have gathered themselves, but it is not data that we have provided.”
Elsewhere, the UK Information Commissioner has requested a warrant to search all Cambridge Analytica’s records.
UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is investigating Cambridge Analytica over claims it used personal data to influence the US election.
Christopher Wylie, who worked with the company, claimed it amassed the data of millions of people through a personality quiz on Facebook called This is Your Digital Life that was created by an academic.
Facebook said Aleksandr Kogan, who created the personality app from which the data had been harvested, has agreed to be audited, but Mr Wylie - who made the claims about the way the data was gathered and used - has declined.
Not a good day for Facebook or Cambridge Analytica!