US Democrats and Republicans call on Zuckerberg to be grilled on data firm that 'harvested users' private information'

US Democrats and Republicans have called on Mark Zuckerberg to be grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee following reports that a data firm took Facebook users' private information for President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic criticized Zuckerberg, after reports surfaced that Cambridge Analytica improperly harvested information from 50 million Facebook users, the Daily Mail reports.

Sen Amy Klobuchar tweeted on Saturday: “This is a major breach that must be investigated. It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves.
 

“I've called for more transparency & accountability for online political ads. They say “trust us.” Mark Zuckerberg needs to testify before Senate Judiciary.”


US Sen Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed Klobuchar's complaint.

“This is more evidence that the online political advertising market is essentially the Wild West,” he said. “It's clear that, left unregulated, this market will continue to be prone to deception and lacking in transparency.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said on Twitter that “Massachusetts residents deserve answers” and announced that her office will investigate.

The officials reacted to reports in The New York Times and The Guardian of London that Cambridge Analytica, which is best known for working on Trump's 2016 campaign, had improperly obtained Facebook user data and retained it after claiming it had deleted the
information.

It was also reported that senior members of Cambridge Analytica met with Russian business executives ahead of the 2016 campaign. 

Facebook suspended the group on Friday for not fully deleting all of the data it had obtained.