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Facebook will face a grueling session of questioning from international politicians in the British parliament on Tuesday around how it handles user data and privacy.
Richard Allen, the tech giant's vice president of public policy, is set to be questioned by lawmakers from Britain, Canada, France, Belgium, Brazil, Ireland, Latvia, Argentina and Singapore.
The hearing is part of the U.K. Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee's inquiry into disinformation and fake news.
The committee's focus has become increasingly centered on Facebook, which found itself at the heart of a scandal surrounding the way user information was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, the controversial political consultancy that helped President Donald Trump's campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
The social media giant was fined £500,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office, the U.K.'s data regulator, for failing to protect user data. However, Facebook has said it will appeal this fine, arguing that the ICO found no evidence that British data had been shared with Cambridge Analytica.
Last weekend, British parliament made the unusually aggressive decision to seize internal Facebook documents from U.S. businessman Ted Kramer, founder of controversial app maker Six4Three. The documents were reportedly obtained by Kramer's lawyers as a result of legal discovery ahead of a court case between Six4Three and Facebook.
Now-defunct Six4Three developed an app called Pikinis, which let people pay to find pictures of Facebook users in swimsuits. The app was shut down in 2015 after Facebook changed its policies around the sharing of user data with third-party developers. Six4Three argues that Facebook drove developers away through anti-competitive means — Facebook disputes that claim, calling it "entirely meritless."
The documents are reported to contain confidential emails related to Facebook's data and privacy controls, as well as correspondence with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and other senior executives at the company.
Damian Collins, chair of the DCMS select committee, has said the papers could be released; however, Facebook's Allen told the British lawmaker that, as they are under judicial consideration, they should be kept out of the public eye.
Collins has repeatedly called on Facebook's Zuckerberg to appear before the committee, only to be rejected multiple times. The highest-level Facebook executive to have appeared before the committee so far was Mark Schroepfer, the firm's chief technology officer, who in April admitted the company "did not read all of the terms and conditions" of the app responsible for improperly sharing user data with Cambridge Analytica.
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