Zuckerberg to Testify Before European Officials

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is to testify before the European Parliament on Tuesday that the social network has not done enough to prevent its tools from causing “harm.”

“It’s also become clear over the last couple of years that we haven’t done enough to prevent the tools we’ve built from being used for harm,” Zuckerberg said in remarks prepared for European officials. He also apologized for not taking “a broad enough view” of their responsibilities, thus allowing for the misuse of users’ personal information.

According to CNN, this testimony may prove to be more challenging for him because the European Union gives much more priority to data privacy than the United States.

“The European tradition on privacy is stronger than that in the U.S., particularly in relation to corporate invasions of privacy, which from a European perspective the U.S. seems to have been notably soft over in the last few decades,” said Paul Bernal, senior lecturer in IT and media law at the University of East Anglia.

He added that unlike lawmakers in Washington, “some members of the European Parliament are far more expert in the field.”

In April, Facebook said that third-party access will be restricted and that information pertaining to phone calls and texts older than a year will be deleted. It will also end a feature allowing users to search for a profile using a phone number or personal email.

In his remarks, the Facebook chief added that the required changes will take time, but that he was committed to doing everything needed to “keep people safe.”

Facebook has further changed its data privacy policy in order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which goes into effect across the European Union on Friday.

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