Cambridge Analytica Under CBI Radar; Case Booked For Illegally Harvesting 5 Lakh Indians

By FnF Correspondent | PUBLISHED: 22, Jan 2021, 17:50 pm IST | UPDATED: 22, Jan 2021, 17:50 pm IST

Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against UK-based Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research Limited in a case of alleged “illegal harvest” of personal data of 5.62 lakh Indian Facebook users.

“The agency registered the case on January 19 against Cambridge Analytica represented by Alexander Nix and Global Science Research Limited represented by Aleksandr Kogen under the Information Technology Act,” IANS quoted a CBI official as saying.

The case was registered after the CBI registered a Preliminary Enquiry in July 2018 on the Centre’s recommendation. This after Union Law and Justice and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Rajya Sabha that the probe would be handed over to the central agency.

The Preliminary Enquiry was registered after a number of reports appeared with respect to alleged illegal harvesting of personal data of the Facebook users and their friends by Cambridge Analytica through Global Science Research Limited.

The Electronics and Information Technology Ministry had sought details from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica for the alleged violations and its possible misuse by Cambridge Analytica for profiling and influencing elections in India.

The CBI had examined a set of details shared by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook as part of its ongoing probe into alleged data harvesting of Indians from the social media platform.

The investigating agency had sought the data from Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, based in Britain and the US respectively. This in order to know the method of data collection by the Cambridge Analytica, the political consultation firm that combined data mining, data brokerage and data analysis with strategic communication during the electoral processes.

Facebook reported that the data of potentially 5.62 lakh Indians users might have been illegally harvested.

It was revealed in the Preliminary Enquiry that Kogen had created an application named "thisisyourdigitallife", IANS reports.

The CBI alleged that as per the platform policy for Facebook, the application was authorised to collect certain specific data of the users for academic and research purposes.

“The application, however, illegally collected additional unauthorised data of the user as well as their friends' network on Facebook," the investigating agency added