US Congress to hear testimony from Twitter whistleblower Zatko on Sept 13

San Francisco: Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, a Twitter whistleblower is scheduled to testify before the US Congress on September 13 about allegations that the Parag Agrawal-led microblogging platform misled authorities about its security procedures and the actual number of bot accounts.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that former Twitter security head Zatko will appear before the Senate over his claims of security lapses at the social network.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the hearing is scheduled for September 13 and Zatko will appear "pursuant to a subpoena".

"Zatko's allegations of widespread security failures and foreign state actor interference at Twitter raise serious concerns. If these claims are accurate, they may show dangerous data privacy and security risks for Twitter users around the world," said Senators Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) from the Senate Judiciary Committee in a statement.

Zatko has met privately with Judiciary Committee staff and has had three meetings on Capitol Hill, according to the report.

Twitter declined to comment on the hearing.

The company held a town hall on Wednesday in which senior company executives deliberated upon the whistleblower complaint.

Twitter is now facing privacy probes in the European Union (EU) after the whistleblower complaint.

Zatko's complaints had references to European regulators, alleging that Twitter misled or intended to mislead regional oversight bodies over its compliance with local laws.

According to TechCrunch, Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) and France's CNIL are following up on the whistleblower complaint.

Meanwhile, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also asked Twitter to explain its user metrics after Tesla CEO Elon Musk complained.

"We note your estimate that the average number of false or spam accounts during fiscal 2021 continues to represent fewer than 5 per cent of mDAU," the commission wrote to Twitter.

"To the extent material, please disclose the methodology used in calculating these figures and the underlying judgements and assumptions used by management," the SEC added.

With inputs from IANS