Questions Remain as Facebook Looks to Brief Lawmakers
The Senate Commerce Committee has a staff briefing scheduled this week with Facebook to discuss the recent hack (see 1810020046), a committee aide said Friday. A House Commerce Committee aide said leadership will pursue follow-up briefings with Facebook after a preliminary phone conversation with staff Thursday. Questions remain about the impact on third-party apps from the breach, the House Commerce aide said. The House Judiciary Committee, which didn’t comment, also requested a briefing from the platform. Facebook didn’t comment.
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“My biggest question is why this keeps happening,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told us, saying his office will be involved in the Senate Commerce Committee briefing. He addressed his committee’s effort to formulate bipartisan privacy legislation (see 1809260050). “We need a standard of care, as it relates to all data, not just for web platforms but for any business that collects your information online. They should all be responsible for breaches and not use data to the detriment of their consumers.”
Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Angus King, I-Maine, told us Facebook has an obligation to fully inform the public first, before discussions with lawmakers. “I assume they’ve already reported it to the various enforcement agencies, but I think it’s their customers they need to explain it to,” King said, noting “the Congress would be interested.” The public comes first, Johnson agreed: “We’ll see what Congress needs to do in terms of oversight, so they certainly need to explain things to their customers, if I were them.”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who introduced privacy legislation with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told us he has “a lot of questions” for Facebook. “I’m concerned about everything I know about it, and I need to learn more. Facebook is a private sector company, and I’m a private sector guy, but we have to face the facts that Facebook and some of the other social media companies aren’t corporations; they’re countries. They have the power of countries, and we need to find out what’s going on.”
Asked about lack of early action from the FTC on Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica breach (see 1808220030) and the potential for another probe, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told us: “They need to do the investigation as quickly and effectively as possible, both that one and this one.” Blumenthal introduced privacy legislation with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., cited proposals his office is weighing to deal with data privacy, as well as suggestions at recent hearings (see 1808200034). “I want to make sure that we continue to see progress” from Facebook, Warner told reporters.