Mark Zuckerberg has apologised for a major breach of trust at the social media network he founded that's resulted in the user data of 50 million Facebook users being mined without their knowledge.
In an interview with US network CNN on Wednesday, Zuckerberg committed Facebook to continuing to strengthen regulations around the apps it allows to collect user data.
He said the rules that resulted in London-based Cambridge Analytica's ability to exploit data have been updated and restricted and that Facebook will put in place more regulations to stop future data mining.
He also reiterated an apology he made earlier on Wednesday in a blog about the scandal.
"This was a major breach of trust and I'm really sorry that this happened," Zuckerberg told CNN.
"We have a basic responsibility to protect people's data. And if we can't do that, then we don't deserve to have the opportunity to serve people. So our responsibility now is to make sure that this doesn't happen again."
Facebook is facing growing government scrutiny in Europe and the US after whistleblower allegations emerged about Cambridge Analytica's improper access of user information to build profiles on American voters which were later used to help elect US President Donald Trump in 2016.
During the CNN interview Zuckerberg was also pressed on the scope of Facebook's investigation into apps that had access to "large amounts of information" before the 2014.
"It's hard to know what we'll find," he responded.
"We're going to review thousands of apps. So this is going to be an intensive process, but this is important."
With upcoming elections in India and Brazil, Facebook is committed to ensuring the integrity of those elections, Zuckerberg said.
"We can get in front of this, and we have a responsibility to do this...there's a big election in India this year," he said.
"There's a big election in Brazil. There are big elections around the world, and you can bet we are really committed to doing everything that we need to to make sure that the integrity of those elections on Facebook is secured."
He also said he would happily testify before US Congress if he was the most informed and qualified on the issue at hand.
"We see a small slice of activity on Facebook, but Congress gets to, you know, have access to the information across Facebook and all other companies and the intelligence community and everything," he said.
"So what we try to do is send the person at Facebook who will have the most knowledge about what Congress is trying to learn. So if that's me, then I am happy to go."
Zuckerberg couldn't give a concrete answer on whether Facebook affected the outcome of the 2016 election, and said it's "hard to fully assess" how all the different aspects of political involvement that run on Facebook -- and the bad actors -- compared to on-the-ground campaigning.
Australian Associated Press