Canadians take the lead to subpoena Facebook top dogs

The Canadians continue to spearhead global attempts to drag Facebook overlords Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg into line as part of their probe into the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The Canadian Parliament Ethics Committee has voted to issue subpoenas for both Zuckerberg and COO Sandberg as it examines how Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect personal information on 87 million of the social network’s users and then target specific voting groups to influence election outcomes.
Canadian MP Charlie Angus told CBC: “We have given our chair the mandate to issue a summons to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg if they choose not to come before the International Grand Committee.
“We think it’s important that they show up .… The corporate indifference to domestic law in Canada and other countries by Facebook needs to be questioned.”
Ottawa is hosting the second meeting of the International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy & Democracy, which has been studying the Cambridge Analytica row and measures that governments around the world could take to protect the personal data of end users.
In the first meeting of the Committee, held in the autumn in London, Zuckerberg refused to attend and instead dispatched one of his lieutenants to testify in his place.
The second meeting is scheduled to take place on May 28.
While the subpoena is only valid in Canada – meaning Zuckerberg and Sandberg could easily flout it by remaining in the US – it will hardly be great for the image of a company which now claims to have privacy is at its heart.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.