--- title: Mark Zuckerberg Says Cambridge Analytica Acquired His Data description: Mark Zuckerberg says that his own information was among the large sum of data obtained by the data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica. canonical: https://time.com/5236279/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica-data/ author: Nash Jenkins article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-04-11T15:33:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:51:43.305Z article:section: Politics og:title: Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Cambridge Analytica Acquired His Personal Data og:description: He was one of the 87 million Facebook users affected by the scandal og:url: https://time.com/5236279/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica-data/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9bea267869fb8260/69892d630a4a2219079d25e9/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Facebook Mark Zuckerberg Cambridge Analytica og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Cambridge Analytica Acquired His Personal Data twitter:description: He was one of the 87 million Facebook users affected by the scandal twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9bea267869fb8260/69892d630a4a2219079d25e9/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Cambridge Analytica Acquired His Personal Data by [Nash Jenkins](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins Apr 11, 2018 3:33 PM UTC  Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, D.C. Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, D.C.Alex Wong—Getty Images by [Nash Jenkins](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins Apr 11, 2018 3:33 PM UTC Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told a Congressional committee on Wednesday that his own personal information was among the large sum of data wrongfully obtained by political analysis firm [Cambridge Analytica](http://time.com/5228213/cambridge-analytica-87-million-facebook-users/). Zuckerberg is on Capitol Hill for the third consecutive day, testifying Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about Facebook’s failures to protect users from outside political interference and data misuse ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Wednesday’s conversation, as with Zuckerberg’s testimony before a joint Senate committee the prior afternoon, centered largely on Cambridge Analytica, which acquired the data of approximately 87 million Facebook users from a researcher who created a personality quiz on the site. In a tense exchange between Zuckerberg and Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, the 33-year-old Zuckerberg admitted that his data was among the information acquired by Cambridge Analytica. “Was your data included in the data sold to the malicious third parties?” Eshoo asked. “Yes,” Zuckerberg responded. Her follow-up: “Are you willing to change your business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy?” Zuckerberg’s answer was more equivocal. “Congresswoman, I’m not sure what that means,” he said. The House is often more fiery than the Senate, and Wednesday’s hearing in a crowded meeting room of the Rayburn House Office Building was decidedly more heated than the [occasionally tedious](http://time.com/5235461/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ted-cruz/) Senate hearing sixteen hours earlier. At one point, Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, compared Facebook to COINTELPRO, the covert F.B.I. surveillance program that targeted activist groups in the mid-twentieth century, and asked Zuckerberg if a parallel between him and notorious former F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover was warranted. The heat was, in any event, an effective strategy on the House’s part. Zuckerberg’s testimony revealed more than Tuesday’s meandering conversation. For instance, Zuckerberg said that user interaction on Facebook has not dropped in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He also suggested that legal regulation of Facebook and similar social media platforms was an inevitable outcome of the current scandal. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5236279/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica-data/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5236279/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica-data/"},"headline":"Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Cambridge Analytica Acquired His Personal Data","datePublished":"2018-04-11T15:33:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:51:43.305Z","description":"He was one of the 87 million Facebook users affected by the scandal","url":"https://time.com/5236279/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica-data/","keywords":["Congress","Tech","facebook"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9bea267869fb8260/69892d630a4a2219079d25e9/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nash Jenkins","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9bea267869fb8260/69892d630a4a2219079d25e9/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Facebook Mark Zuckerberg Cambridge Analytica","caption":"Facebook Mark Zuckerberg Cambridge Analytica","creditText":"Alex Wong—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5236279/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica-data/","name":"Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Cambridge Analytica Acquired His Personal Data"}}]}] ```