Members of Congress from both parties called out Facebook Inc. on Wednesday for paying contractors to transcribe audio clips from its users and urged new statutes to tackle the drumbeat of such revelations from across the tech industry.
The calls, which followed a Bloomberg report that the company was using the transcriptions to test its artificial intelligence speech-recognition, come as smartphones and other microphone-enabled devices become ever-more ubiquitous in homes, offices and schools.
"Congress needs to pass tough rules that ensure that Americans don't have our privacy repeatedly violated by unaccountable corporations," Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement. The Oregon Democrat, who last year circulated draft legislation that would impose steep fines and even prison time for executives at corporations that fail to adequately safeguard Americans' personal data, said that Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg "must be held personally responsible for Facebook's serial privacy offenses."