Zuckerberg's personal data included in Facebook leak

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday that his personal data was also included in the Cambridge Analytica breach, in which millions of users' information was obtained and used by a data firm in the U.K. for critical elections.

In his testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Zuckerberg added that Facebook had started Monday informing its users whose personal information were affected by the worst data leak in the company's history.

Facebook reported last week that 87 million of its users' private information was used without consent by U.K.-based Cambridge Analytica for critical political voting in that country and the U.S.

Zuckerberg faced the U.S. House of Representatives committee a day after the U.S. Senate committee questioned him.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat from California, asked the CEO whether he has a moral responsibility to run a platform that protects democracy. After mumbling, Zuckerberg replied "Yes."

Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, said: "I want a legislation that would empower people by giving them more transparency."

Zuckerberg said regulation of social media firms was "inevitable" in the Internet age.

"You have to be careful about what regulation you have to put in place [...] They can be hard for small start-ups," he added.

Following a question on whether he is willing to change Facebook's business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy, he replied: "I don't know what that means."

Zuckerberg also dodged a question on whether he had contact with Cambridge Analytica CEO after he learned about the data leak in 2015.

During Zuckerberg's testimony, Cambridge Analytica announced CEO Alexander Tayler stepped down, and will resume his former position as chief data officer "in order to focus on the various technical investigations and inquiries".