We'll reply to AGCOM,Facebook tells ANSA (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, March 21 - Facebook Deputy Chief Global Privacy Officer Stephen Deadman told ANSA Wednesday that "we are strongly committed to protect people's information and we welcome the opportunity to respond to the questions posed by the (media watchdog AGCOM)" in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. AGCOM on Tuesday asked Facebook for information on the use of data analytics for the purpose of political communication by third parties, the watchdog said in a statement. The move came amid the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook is under investigation in the US and the UK on the suspected vote-influencing profile harvesting scandal over Brexit and the US presidential elections.
    Mark Zuckerberg has been summoned by a British parliamentary panel and the European Parliament.
    Earlier Tuesday European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Giovanni Buttarelli responded to a question on whether Italian Facebook user data may have been harvested for possible election manipulation, in the same way that US Facebook user data was utilised in efforts to manipulate the US elections, as recently reported in the Cambridge Analytica data breach. "It's not my role to investigate how this data" on Italian Facebook users "is used in practice", Buttarelli said, adding that the "way the (Facebook) system works is global; there isn't a national approach".
    Buttarelli added that next year's European Parliament elections "are an important test for us all".
    He said "we're not her to alarm you but the problem is real and urgent".
    Buttarelli said the EP was planning to set up a committee on data harvesting and fake news, "to which we offer our support.