EU parliament asks Facebook's chief to clarify data use

BRUSSELS - The European Parliament announced on Tuesday that it has invited Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to speak at the institution following revelations that his company's data was massively misused for political purposes.

"We've invited Mark Zuckerberg to the European Parliament. Facebook needs to clarify before the representatives of 500 million Europeans that personal data is not being used to manipulate democracy," European Parliament president Antonio Tajani tweeted.

Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting company, was accused of harvesting data of up to 50 million Facebook users without permission and use the data to help politicians including US President Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign.

"If true, manipulating our personal data is unacceptable and a threat to democracy," Tajani said.

"We are waiting for Facebook representatives to testify on transparency and the respect of EU rules on data protection," he added.