Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Eric Schmidt meet with President Obama over surveillance fears
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg were among high profile tech names to attend a meeting with US President Barack Obama on Friday to discuss government surveillance.
Meeting: President Obama met with tech executives on Friday
The meeting followed months of revelations about the US’s surveillance capabilities from US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
A statement from the White House said: “The president reiterated his administration’s commitment to taking steps that can give people greater confidence that their rights are being protected while preserving important tools that keep us safe.”
However, Zuckerberg insisted that more still needed to be done and civil liberties should be protected.
“While the US government has taken helpful steps to reform its surveillance practices, these are simply not enough,” he said.
“People around the globe deserve to know that their information is secure and Facebook will keep urging the US government to be more transparent about its practices and more protective of civil liberties.”
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced he had made a telephone call to President Obama to express his “frustration over the damage the government is creating for all out future”. The invitations for the meeting were sent out just two days later, according to Guardian sources.
Also at the meeting were Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix; Aaron Levie and Drew Houston, CEOs of Box and Dropbox; and Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies.