By Natalia Drozdiak 

BRUSSELS--European Union officials said they would probe Facebook Inc.'s handling of user data on Monday, after the social network said a firm linked to the 2016 Trump campaign improperly kept data for years despite saying it had destroyed those records.

"Allegations of misuse of Facebook user data is an unacceptable violation of our citizens' privacy rights. The European Parliament will investigate fully, calling digital platforms to account," the parliament's president, Antonio Tajani, said on his official Twitter account.

The EU's justice chief, V ra Jourová, described the news that data was misused for political purpose as "horrifying, if confirmed," adding that she expected "companies to take more responsibility when handling our personal data."

Ms. Jourová said she would seek further clarifications from Facebook and would discuss the matter with U.S. government officials on her scheduled trip to the U.S. this week. Ms. Jourová is set to meet with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Data privacy is a sensitive issue in Europe, with rules generally stricter than in the U.S. and set to become even more so when new regulations enter into force in May. Under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, companies who breach the rules could be hit with fines as high as 4% of global revenue.

The EU officials' comments come after U.S. and British lawmakers slammed Facebook over the weekend for not providing more information about how data firm Cambridge Analytica came to access information about potentially tens of millions of users without their explicit permission.

Damian Collins, a U.K. lawmaker who chairs a parliamentary committee on media and culture, said he intended to ask Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to testify, or send a senior executive to do so, as part of an inquiry into how social-media manipulation affected the outcome of Britain's referendum on exiting the European Union.

Late Friday, Facebook said it had suspended Cambridge and two individuals-- Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor from the University of Cambridge, and Christopher Wylie, who helped found Cambridge--after hearing reports they had violated Facebook policies that govern how third-party developers can deploy user data. Facebook didn't elaborate on the source of its information.

Write to Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 19, 2018 09:23 ET (13:23 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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