Testifying before U.S. senators in the wake of Facebook's data breach scandal and foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told them that his company will do everything to ensure fair polling takes place in India and other countries.

"2018 is an important year for the whole world. Several countries like India, Pakistan will have elections. We'll do everything possible to ensure these elections are safe," Zuckerberg said in the joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, at the Capitol Hill here.

Zuckerberg's statements come in light of the revelation of the sheer number of Facebook users' data that has been compromised. The number has been continually revised upwards from 50 million to 80 million to a 127 million, as confirmed by a U.S. Democratic Party senator who was at the hearing on Capitol Hill today. Of these 127 million users, an estimated 5 lakh user data were of those in India which was compromised. However, this is a minuscule number as India today has about 815  million eligible voters in the country.

Earlier, the CEO and founder of the world's most popular social networking website said he was "sorry" that Facebook did not take a "broad enough view" of the responsibility when their platform was being used for circulating fake news and was becoming a tool for foreign interference in elections. "It's clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy," Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees.

The 33-year-old billionaire also expressed regret that his company was slow in identifying the Russian operations in 2016, which allegedly benefitted the then presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who is now USA's 45th president.

The hearing is taking place after reports started pouring in March that the social networking site had compromised with the personal data of over 87 million Facebook users to Britain-based Cambridge Analytica - which allegedly influenced voters during the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections.

In India, both the national parties -- the Bharatiya Janata party and the Indian National Congress, were revealed to have connections to Cambridge Analytica. India is scheduled to hold general elections in 2019. (With Agency inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 11, 2018 08:11 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).