Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley invited the CEOs to a hearing on April 10. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Grassley, FTC, states turn screws on Facebook amid data flap

Facebook's headaches over Cambridge Analytica showed no signs of abating Monday as government officials at the federal and state levels stepped up their scrutiny of the social media giant.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from 37 states and territories were among the parties advancing or confirming probes into Facebook on Monday. They all want more information on the company's knowledge and handling of Trump-linked data firm Cambridge Analytica's reported acquisition and exploitation of data from 50 million Facebook users.


Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) officially invited Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg along with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to a hearing on data privacy on April 10.

Zuckerberg will be asked about "Facebook's past and future policies regarding the protection and monitoring of consumer data," according to a statement from the committee. The House and Senate Commerce committees have already invited Zuckerberg to testify at hearings of their own.

Running concurrent with Capitol Hill's pressure on Zuckerberg is an investigation into Facebook by the country's chief consumer protection regulator. The FTC on Monday confirmed that probe.

"Companies who have settled previous FTC actions must also comply with FTC order provisions imposing privacy and data security requirements," Tom Pahl, acting director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau, said in a statement. "Accordingly, the FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook. Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices.”

In 2011, Facebook entered into a consent decree with the FTC over its privacy practices. The company could face astronomical fines if the FTC finds that it violated that agreement.

A source familiar with the matter told POLITICO last week that the FTC had launched an inquiry into Facebook.

The top cops from 34 states, plus two territories and Washington, D.C., moved their own inquiries forward Monday in a joint letter to Zuckerberg.

"The situation involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica raises significant concerns about Facebook's policies and practices relating to user privacy, as well as the truthfulness and clarity of representations made to users concerning the uses of their data," Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen wrote in the letter.

The attorneys general, a mix of Republicans and Democrats, "take this very seriously and are collectively engaging Facebook to get to the bottom of what happened and to ensure that these privacy concerns are addressed," Jepsen said.

The AGs in their letter request answers from Zuckerberg to a raft of questions. Those include how Facebook monitored developers' use of data; what safeguards were in place to ensure data wasn't being misused; which apps could access the data of unsuspecting Facebook users; and when Facebook learned of the Cambridge "breach of privacy protections."

