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By Dylan Byers and Cyrus Farivar
Federal regulators are debating whether and how to hold Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, personally accountable for the company's track record of mistreating users' private data, said Thursday. at NBC News two sources close to the discussions.
The sources would not indicate what measures are specifically under study. The Washington Post, which for the first time reported on developments, said the regulators planned to strengthen oversight of Zuckerberg's leadership.
While Facebook has been closely monitoring its privacy practices for years, the two FTC Democrat members have said the agency should target individual leaders, where appropriate.
Justin Brookman, a former policy director for technology research at the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, said Thursday night that although the FTC could appoint corporate executives if it directed, controlled and knew of any wrongdoing, " it uses fraud cases, as far as I can tell. "
Discussions are taking place as the FTC spends more than a year investigating Facebook's data-processing practices.
A spokesman for Facebook declined to comment on the talks, saying only: "We hope to reach a fair and appropriate resolution."
The FTC announced last March that it was investigating reports that the British firm Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained access to data from tens of millions of Facebook users seven years after Facebook. has agreed to improve its privacy practices to resolve a dispute with the FTC.
The company confirmed in July that it was under investigation not only by the FTC, but also by the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice, following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
However, since then, Facebook continues to disclose its incorrect information on user data. More recently, the company said Wednesday night that it may have "unintentionally downloaded" email contacts from 1.5 million registered users since May 2016.
Zuckerberg has been under pressure from regulators and lawmakers for what they have called his action insufficient to confirm the company's serial pledges to do better.
NBC News reported this week that Zuckerberg had overseen the user data processing project as a currency of exchange with partner companies, according to thousands of pages of company documents spanning the years 2011 to 2015 .
Alex Johnson contributed.
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