Senator Ron Wyden Questions Facebook, Twitter over National Security Risk Posed by User Data Leaks

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) questioned Facebook and Twitter over the possibility of user data leaks posing a national security threat at a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee today.

Speaking to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) brought up the issue of consumer privacy as a national security issue. 

“Technology companies like yours hold a vast amount of very private information about millions of Americans. The prospect of that data being shared with shady businesses, hackers and foreign governments is a massive privacy and national security concern. Russians keep looking for more sophisticated ways of attacking our democracy, personal data reveals not just your personal and political leanings but what you buy, even who you date.”

“My view is, personal data is now the weapon of choice for political influence campaigns, and we must not make it easier for our adversaries to seize these weapons and use them against us. So I’d like to see if we can do a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on this and I wrote it because I think we can.”

“My view is, from this point on beefing up protections and controls on personal privacy must be a national security priority,” Wyden then asked Sandberg and Dorsey if they agreed to which both replied that they did.

Dorsey and Sandberg are testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time of the writing of this article, and a livestream can be watched here.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will testify separately before the House Energy and Commerce Committee at 1:30 p.m. EST.