CBI books UK-based Cambridge Analytica for 'illegally harvesting data' of Facebook users in India

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case against the UK-based Cambridge Analytica on January 22. The company was booked for "illegally harvesting data" of scores of Facebook users in India, officials said.

The case has been registered under IPC section 120(B), along with sections 66B, 85, 43(a) and 66 of IT Act 2000. The penal action was preceded by a preliminary enquiry by the CBI based on a complaint from the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology.

The enquiry was revealed that the founder and director of first UK based company had allegedly created an app “thisisyourdigitallife” and this app was authorized to collect specific data of its users in Facebook as per their platform policy.

The app was accused of illegally harvested additional data of FB users and of their friends on FB. It was further alleged that 335 Indians had installed the app and data of approximately 5.62 lakh FB friends of these users was unauthorizedly harvested by the app without their consent.

The said company allegedly entered into a conspiracy with the second UK-based company during 2014 and gave right to use this illegally harvested data to second company for commercial purpose.

The Cambridge Analytica case had come to the fore in 2018, after three major international publications accessed documents which showed that the company had harvested data of Facebook users to influence political campaigns across the world.