The former head of Cambridge Analytica has agreed to appear before MPs on 6 June, as part of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee’s investigation into data privacy and fake news.
The committee had issued a formal summons to Mr Nix earlier this month, who had previously maintained he could not give evidence while investigations by the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Electoral Commission were ongoing.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook chief executive, has agreed to appear before MEPs in Brussels but has resisted the committee’s appeals to give evidence himself three times.
The British consultancy firm has been accused of improperly accessing the users’ data in an effort to sway international elections, including the 2016 US Presidential election and the Brexit referendum.
Channel 4 News’ Cambridge Analytica expose: the key revelations
Damian Collins, Conservative MP and chairman of the DCMS committee, had warned of “serious inconsistencies between Mr Nix’s original testimony of 27 February, and evidence received under the inquiry since.”
Mr Nix is the latest of several key figures to give evidence in the inquiry, including whistleblower Christoper Wylie, former Cambridge Analytica business director Brittany Kaiser, Dr Aleksandr Kogan, the scientist who developed the app which harvested the personal data of millions of Facebook users and Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer.
Cambridge Analytica suspended Mr Nix in March after an independent investigation to determine if the company engaged in any wrongdoing in its work on political campaigns was launched, before it ceased all operations and filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.
Mr Nix was filmed offering to entrap political opponents with bribes and sex in an undercover investigation by Channel 4.
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