Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg will not answer questions from British MPs over how millions of users' data got into the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, according to a letter sent by the social network.
He will instead send his Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer or Chief Product Officer Chris Cox to appear before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee.
Mr Zuckerberg apologised last week for the mistakes Facebook had made and promised tougher steps to restrict developers' access to such information in a scandal which has rocked the social media giant on both sides of the Atlantic.
The firm's Head of UK Public Policy wrote to MPs to say that Mr Schroepfer or Mr Cox were better placed to answer questions.
"Facebook fully recognises the level of public and Parliamentary interest in these issues and support your belief that these issues must be addressed at the most senior levels of the company by those in an authoritative position," wrote Rebecca Stimson.
"As such Mr Zuckerberg has personally asked one of his deputies to make themselves available to give evidence in person to the Committee."
Committee chairman Damian Collinsrepeated his call for Mr Zuckerberg to give evidence to its inquiry, saying it would be "appropriate" for him to do so in person or via video link.
In a statement at the opening of the committee hearing, the chairman said: "We believe, given the serious nature of the allegations that have been made around the access and use of Facebook user data, that it is appropriate that Mark Zuckerberg should give evidence to the committee.
"He has suggested that Chris Cox, the chief product officer at Facebook, could come to London to give evidence to the committee in the first week after the Easter recess.
"So we would be very happy to invite Mr Cox to give evidence. However we would still like to hear from Mr Zuckerberg as well.
"We will seek to clarify from Facebook whether he is available to give evidence or not, because that wasn't clear from our correspondence.
"If he is available to give evidence then we would be happy to do that either in person or by video link, if that would be more convenient for him."
Canadian company worked on software to find Republican voters - whistleblower
A Cambridge Analytica whistleblower said that Canadian company AggregateIQ worked on software called Ripon which was used to identify Republican voters ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.
Christopher Wylie has previously disclosed how users' data from Facebookwas used by Cambridge Analytica to help elect US PresidentDonald Trump.
Ripon, the town in which the Republican Party was founded in 1854, was the name given to a tool that let a campaign manage its voter database, target specific voters, conduct canvassing, manage fundraising and carry out surveys.
"There's now tangible proof in the public domain that AIQactually built Ripon, which is the software that utilised the algorithms from the Facebook data," Mr Wylie told the committee.
AggregateIQ said on 24 March that it had never been and is not a part of Cambridge Analytica nor ever entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica.
It said it works in full compliance within all legal and regulatory requirements and had never knowingly been involved in any illegal activity.
Cambridge Analytica said today that it had not shared any of the Facebook profile data procured by a Cambridge academic with AggregateIQ. It said it had not had any communication with AggregateIQ since December 2015.
