Updated: June 18, 2019 / 4:36 p.m.
Maxine Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, mentioned that Facebook should halt their development of the product, dubbed Libra until U.S. Congress and regulators can review the issue, and call on company executives to testify before Congress.
“Facebook has data on billions of people and has repeatedly shown a disregard for the protection and careful use of this data,” she said in a statement. “With the announcement that it plans to create a cryptocurrency, Facebook is continuing its unchecked expansion and extending its reach into the lives of its users.”
Waters comments came after Representative Patrick McHenry, who is the senior Republican on her panel, sought a hearing on Facebook’s new initiative. A Facebook representative said the company looked forward to answering lawmakers’ questions regarding their project.
The announcement made by Facebook’s was met with instant backlash from U.S. lawmakers and regulators across the globe. They are concerned that Facebook is already too massive and careless with users’ privacy.
“Facebook is already too big and too powerful, and it has used that power to exploit users’ data without protecting their privacy. We cannot allow Facebook to run a risky new cryptocurrency out of a Swiss bank account without oversight,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, in a statement.