UK Parliament Took Facebook's Internal Documents

The UK government is having several questions for Facebook but the company has been avoiding, so over the weekend, British Parliament forced Facebook to submit its documents.

The seized documents are said to reveal a lot about how Facebook control its privacy and user data, which is related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the connection among its top executives, including Mark Zuckerberg.

According to the Guardian, Six4Three founder was ordered to hand over the materials via a rare parliament’s mechanism in his business trip to London. The Parliament had an unusual move when it sent an official to the hotel where he was staying, handing him a warning to follow the order, otherwise, he would be punished by paying fines or even going to prison. After declining to give out the documents, the Parliament captured him and took away the documents.

This seizure is the result of increasing requests from various countries, calling for Facebook CEO to attend an international joint hearing in London next week with the aim to investigate disinformation as well as election interference. Forces have been taken a closer look into Facebook because of propaganda and other misleading information appearing on users’ news feeds.

For many times, Facebook CEO has refused to present before the Parliament and claim its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. There used to be warnings from Damian Collins, Chair of Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee, that Zuckerberg may be brought to the Parliament the way they took documents from Six4Three founder if he shows up in the UK. Despite appearing in Paris and Brussels, Zuckerberg has not come to the UK since the revelation of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The Parliament took the documents during a lawsuit of Six4Three against Facebook, in which the defunct company accused the tech giant of creating privacy holes which let Cambridge Analytica steal user data.

However, Facebook pointed out that the documents that Parliament obtained was under the seal and requested the California court to consider the Parliament’s action by Monday.

Facebook’s Head of public policy Richard Allan sent a letter to Parliament on Sunday, in which he wrote that the claims and filings are more likely to be attacking attempts rather than credible legal claims.

In his response, Collins posted on Twitter, he said that based on parliamentary privilege, the UK committee has the right to publish the documents.

Allan is required to present himself at the Parliament tomorrow, where 22 politicians representing seven countries will question him as a part included in the first official meeting of the Grand Committee on Disinformation and fake news.

There haven’t been any comments from Six4Three.