California sued Facebook to release documents it previously requested as part of an investigation into possible privacy violations by the social media company. Photo by Pat Benic/UPI |
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Nov. 6 (UPI) -- California's attorney general sued Facebook Wednesday for documents, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg's emails, as part of an investigation into possible privacy violations by the social media company.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the state has been investigating Facebook for 18 months and said the company has failed to comply with a subpoena by providing "inadequate" responses and not providing or searching for requested documents showing communications of the company's senior executives.
"The California Department of Justice, pursuant to its statutory authority, issued investigative subpoenas against Facebook starting back in June 2018 to examine the company's actions and business practices and any violations of user privacy. The responses we have received to date are patently inadequate," Becerra said.
Becerra said Facebook took more than a year to produce documents related to the management of its relationship with Cambridge Analytica and produced no documents in response to six document requests.
Facebook also provided no answers to 19 of 27 written interrogatories about claims of Facebook's violation of users' privacy and partial response to six others, the California Department of Justice said.
"Our work must move forward. We are left with little choice but to seek a court order compelling Facebook to faithfully comply with our duly authorized subpoenas," Becerra said.
Facebook's vice president of state and local policy, Will Castleberry, said in a statement to NBC News the company has been working with Becerra's office.
"We have cooperated extensively with the State of California's investigation. To date we have provided thousands of pages of written responses and hundreds of thousands of documents," Castleberry said.
