The New York Times

Sony has declined to testify at a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, “The Threat of Data Theft to American Consumers,” that seeks to understand how consumers’ private data is protected by corporations.

Last week Sony’s PlayStation Network was infiltrated by hackers who gained access to highly sensitive information about its customers. The gaming network has 77 million registered users. Representative Mary Bono Mack, the chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, asked the company to answer a set of questions and attend the hearing.

Ken Johnson, senior adviser and spokesman for Representative Mack, said Sony declined to testify at the hearing citing “an ongoing investigation” it is conducting with law enforcement.

The subcommittee sent a letter to Sony on Friday asking the company to answer a number of questions related to the attack by May 6. After Sony declined to testify to the committee, the deadline to respond to questions was pushed up to May 3.

A sony spokesperson said in an e-mail message: Sony is cooperating with the request for answers to the Committee’s questions, and in fact will be providing our responses in advance of the deadline. We informed the committee that we could not appear as early as this Wednesday because of our ongoing intensive investigation and management of this criminal cyberattack.

“We’ve taken a pretty tough line with the company, and they have agreed to provide answers to all of our questions by close of business tomorrow,” Mr. Johnson said. “While we understand the company is going through a tough time with this, there are certain questions that need answering.”

A memo that was sent to subcommittee members notes that the hearing is intended to “examine risks related to data breaches, the state of ongoing investigations, current industry data security practices, and available technology.”

Although Sony said its users’ credit card information was encrypted on its servers, hackers claimed to have access to 2.2 million credit cards and were hoping to sell them on a underground hacker networks. The committee has asked Sony to divulge what type of personal information was actually taken during the attack.

Other witnesses who will testify at the hearing include David Vladeck, director of the bureau of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission, and Pablo Martinez, deputy special agent in charge of criminal investigations at the United States Secret Service.

The committee hopes to discuss recent data breaches from companies like Sony and Epsilon and to determine if Congress needs to create a federal data breach notification law to help protect consumers after their personal information is taken or lost.