UK, Canadian politicians push for Mark Zuckerberg privacy hearing

Politicians from the UK and Canada want to hear from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a joint hearing in London next month, the latest effort to get him to testify in Britain.

The UK's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and its Canadian counterpart wrote to Zuckerberg on Wednesday. Damien Collins, a member of Parliament who heads the UK committee, tweeted the letter.

Together with @bobzimmermp, I have today written to Mark Zuckerberg inviting him to give evidence to an international committee to be held in London on 27th November pic.twitter.com/jHhQ5S3SNt

— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) October 31, 2018

"The hearing of your evidence is now overdue, and urgent," wrote Collins and Bob Zimmer, a Canadian member of Parliament who heads Canada's Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

The pair gave the Facebook boss until Nov. 7 to respond to the invitation to a Nov 27 hearing.

Zuckerberg turned down an invitation in the spring to give evidence to the UK Parliament about Facebook's role in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. He did answer questions before the European Union's Parliament and the US Congress.

Last week, the social network was hit with a £500,000 ($638,000) fine in UK -- the maximum amount allowed by law -- over the harvesting of users' data.