UK Parliament seizes internal Facebook documents in the hands of American

The British Parliament has used exceptional powers to obtain Facebook’s internal papers containing information about the Cambridge Analytica case. They were owned by an American company whose founder was on a business trip in London.

The documents are indeed from Facebook, but were in the hands of the American former software start-up Six4Three. Six4Three is itself involved in a legal battle with Facebook in the US. It obtained those papers in the so-called discovery phase of a lawsuit, in which the two sides can exchange their evidence.

According to the report, from The Guardian, the papers would include confidential emails between Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook officials, which could show what decisions were made in the years leading up to the Cambridge Analytica case and where the leaders were. were aware of. Six4Three claims that these papers show that Facebook was aware of the implications of its privacy policy and even encouraged Cambridge Analytica to take advantage of it.

The British newspaper goes on to say that even a so-called serjeant at arms had to be sent to the man’s hotel room, who gave him his final warning and a deadline to hand over the papers. The man reportedly refused to comply, after which the serjeant forcibly escorted him to parliament, where he had to be screened with fines and prison sentences before he finally handed over the documents.

“This is an unprecedented move, but it is also an unprecedented situation,” said MP Damian Collins, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and who gave the order. “We have not received any replies from Facebook and we believe the documents contain information of great interest to the public.”

Facebook itself denies guilt in the Cambridge Analytica case and requests that the papers be returned and not read. The social media giant has declined to comment further. A hearing is scheduled for next week, where Facebook will answer questions from a committee of representatives from 22 countries. Mark Zuckerberg, however, refrains from further appearances and interrogations and sends Richard Allan, policymaker at Facebook, in his place.