Private Facebook documents seized by parliament

Documents allegedly contain email conversations about privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal

The UK Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) used an obscure parliamentary mechanism to compel a US software company to hand over private documents. These are thought to include conversations between Facebook executives and others relating to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The move follows Mark Zuckerberg's repeated refusal to face questions from MPs.

The Observer revealed on Sunday that founder of US software company Six4Three, whose app made use of the Facebook API, was confronted by a sergeant at arms at his London hotel with a final warning to hand over documents and a two-hour deadline in which to comply. When the deadline elapsed, he was escorted to parliament and informed that fines and imprisonment could follow.

Six4Three previously took legal action against Facebook after the social network shut down access to its friend data API in 2015. The company said it had invested more than $250,000 in its Facebook app, and alleged that its correspondences with the social network show that the company was offering a similar level of access to that granted to Cambridge Analytica.

After Facebook shut down the friend data API, Six4Three could no longer gain access to the data and began legal proceedings. Six4Three's lawyers claimed in May that it had evidence that "the Cambridge Analytica scandal was not the result of mere negligence on Facebook's part but was rather the direct consequence of the malicious and fraudulent scheme Zuckerberg designed in 2012 to cover up his failure to anticipate the world's transition to smartphones."

Seizing documents from a third party is a highly unusual measure. CMS chairman Damian Collins MP told The Observer described it as "uncharted territory."

Collins said: "This is an unprecedented move but it's an unprecedented situation. We've failed to get answers from Facebook and we believe the documents contain information of very high public interest."

The action has provoked a strong response from Facebook.

"The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure," the company said.

"We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook. We have no further comment."

However, it is uncertain what a Californian court could do to prevent MPs from viewing the documents.