The information commissioner’s office will use its legal powers to obtain information from Facebook about a secretive network of pro-Brexit advertising campaigns on the social network, following revelations about the involvement of Sir Lynton Crosby’s company in campaigns pushing for a hard no-deal Brexit.

The ICO will look at how any data, potentially including email addresses collected in the process of encouraging people to email their MP, is being handled.

The Guardian revealed on Wednesday how a series of apparently grassroots advertising campaigns for a no-deal Brexit are secretly overseen by employees of the Tory election guru’s lobbying company.

“We are aware of these, and other similar concerns, and have included them as part of our ongoing investigation into the use of personal data for political purposes,” said an ICO spokesperson.

“We have used our statutory powers to require the social media platforms and campaign groups involved to provide information to our investigators. This will allow us to identify if there has been any misuse of personal data. Our work is ongoing. As we have set out before, the use of personal information for political campaigning purposes must comply with data protection law and, as we have shown, we will take all necessary action to protect UK citizens and uphold the law.”

Damian Collins, the Conservative MP who this week confirmed the launch of a permanent House of Commons sub-committee on disinformation, said he would be discussing the Crosby-linked Facebook advertising campaigns with the UK information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, at a hearing later this month.

'Grassroots' Facebook Brexit ads secretly run by staff of Lynton Crosby firm Read more

“We want to understand who is paying for these campaigns, what data they are using to target people on social media, where that data came from and also what they plan to do with the data they are collecting,” he said.

He left open the possibility of calling Crosby as a witness to explain his employees’ involvement in front of the committee: “We are keen to know more about the ICO’s investigation into this, and the committee will decide after that hearing what other witnesses we will call.”

Labour has called for Crosby to appear in front of parliament. “Third-party campaign networks are operating together in the shadows to influence our democracy,” said the shadow culture secretary, Tom Watson. “The citizens targeted by their advertising campaigns have no way of knowing who these groups really are and who is funding them. It’s not right.”

A pro-Brexit Facebook advert run by Britain’s Future targeted at the Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng. Photograph: Britain's Future / Facebook

The network of supposedly independently pro-Brexit campaign groups with names such as Mainstream Network and Britain’s Future have collectively spent as much as £1m urging voters to contact their local MP and demand a hard no-deal Brexit, creating the impression of a large-scale grassroots rejection of Theresa May’s deal.

In reality they are overseen by a group of individuals including employees of Crosby’s CTF Partners, and a former political adviser to Boris Johnson.

Watson also said Johnson, who is thought to be working with Crosby on a potential Conservative party leadership campaign, should also appear in front of the House of Commons select committee on disinformation and answer questions about whether he knew about the adverts, which have been running since last year.

In another blow for the Australian lobbyists, Facebook is also considering whether the activities of Crosby’s employees meet the definition of “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, a term that has been used by the social networking company to justify the removal of Russian and Iranian disinformation campaigns from their site.

The social network defines coordinated inauthentic behaviour as when “groups of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they’re doing”, a broad definition that appears to apply to the activities of Mainstream Network and Britain’s Future.

“When we take down one of these networks it’s because of their deceptive behaviour, it’s not because of the content they’re sharing,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, in a video posted last year, explaining how the social network approaches such matters.