California’s attorney general said that Facebook has continued "to drag its feet” when it comes to handing over documents pertaining to the state’s investigation into the social media giant and Cambridge Analytica.
On Wednesday (Nov. 6), California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a court filing that Facebook's response to two sets of subpoenas has been “patently deficient," adding that “Facebook has provided no answers for 19 interrogatories, and produced no documents in response to six document requests."
The year-long investigation has been looking into the scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, which scraped tens of millions of Facebook profiles to help Donald Trump become president. Becerra has requested documents from executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, as well as documentation relating to the company’s privacy changes. However, the court filing stated that the company has been “failing to comply with lawfully issued subpoenas and interrogatories” for what the attorney general said involves “serious allegations of unlawful business practices by one of the richest companies in the world." Becerra now wants the court to order Facebook to provide the request documents.
A Facebook spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Since Cambridge Analytica, Facebook has been hit with several privacy scandals. Just this week, the company revealed that it unknowingly gave outside developers access to some private user information, with its Groups API allowing some third-party developers to collect sensitive user data over the past 18 months.
So far, at least 11 partners — mainly social media management and video streaming apps — have accessed group members’ information in the last 60 days, though Facebook has not seen any evidence of abuse. Still, the company will be reaching out to request that partners “delete any member data they may have retained, and we will conduct audits to confirm that it has been deleted.”
