Culture secretary Matt Hancock demands answers from Facebook executives

Culture secretary Matt Hancock has called in senior executives from Facebook for a meeting next week, demanding answers over the misuse of personal data.

Hancock, who is currently leading the government’s work to strengthen UK data laws through the Data Protection Bill making its way through parliament, will grill managers during a meeting on 11 April.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is set to appear before two US congressional hearings next week: first up is the Senate’s Judiciary and Commerce Committee on 10 April, followed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The tech tycoon this week admitted most Facebook users who had a specific search function – where users can let other users search for them by email address or phone number instead of by name – will have been accessed by third parties.

“We’ve seen some scraping,” Zuckerberg told reporters. “I would assume if you had that setting turned on that someone at some point has access to your public information in some way.”

Hancock will be asking Facebook executives how they will give users more control over their data and seek further assurances that UK users data won’t be misused in the future.

He will also seek further reassurances around the estimated 1.1 million UK users whose data was potentially compromised as part of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Hancock said: “I’ll be meeting Facebook next week. I expect it to explain why they put the data of more than a million of our citizens at risk. This is completely unacceptable, and they must demonstrate this won’t happen again.”

Hancock recently pledged to strengthen the Information Commissioner’s hand after she was left blocked from Cambridge Analytica’s London headquarters. He has since been in touch with her to ensure the investigation is “forging ahead”.