CBI books 2 UK firms for harvesting FB users' data

| | New Delhi
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CBI books 2 UK firms for harvesting FB users' data

Saturday, 23 January 2021 | PNS | New Delhi

The CBI has registered a case against two UK-based firms---Global Science Research Limited (GSR), UK, represented by Dr Aleksandr Kogan and Cambridge Analytica, UK, represented by Alexander Nix---under IPC Sections relating to criminal conspiracy and cyber crime under the Information Technology Act for the alleged illegal harvesting of personal data of 5.62 lakh Indian Facebook users for commercial purposes.

Earlier, a Preliminary Enquiry was conducted by CBI based on a complaint from Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology.

"It was revealed in the enquiry that the founder and director of first UK-based company "Global Science Research Limited had allegedly created an app "thisisyourdigitallife" and this app was authorized to collect specific data of its users in Facebook (FB) as per their platform policy.  It was alleged that the app illegally harvested additional data of FB users and of their friends on FB," the CBI said in a statement.

It was further alleged that 335 Indians had installed the app and data of approximately 5.62 lakh FB friends of these users was harvested in unauthorized manner by the app without their consent, the agency said.

It was also alleged that the said company (Global Science Research Limited) entered into conspiracy with a second UK-based company (Cambridge Analytica) during 2014 and gave rights to use this illegally harvested data to the second company for commercial purpose, it said, adding that the investigation is continuing.     

The Preliminary Enquiry was converted into a Regular Case (FIR) after the enquiry revealed commission of criminal offences by Cambridge Analytica and GSRL.

The app "thisisyourdigitallife" was authorized to collect specific user data for academic and research purposes in 2014 according to Facebook's policy. But the app also collected additional unauthorized data of users illegally, the CBI probe has revealed. This data, including demographic information, pages liked and contents on private chats, was collected without the knowledge and consent of the app users, an official said.

The GSRL then entered into a criminal conspiracy with Cambridge Analytica, allowing it to use the data harvested by it for commercial purposes, the official said.

"Responding to the CBI's queries, Facebook told the CBI that GSRL illegally collected personal data of around 5.62 lakh users in India and shared it with Cambridge Analytica. The consulting firm then allegedly used the data to influence elections in India," the official said.

There are over 20 crore users of Facebook in India.

During a debate in Parliament in July 2018, Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that the CBI was investigating London-based data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, accused of illegally sourcing Facebook data to influence political campaigns and compromising personal information of Indian voters.

Prasad had announced the CBI probe into the issue in the Rajya Sabha in response to a calling-attention motion on how rumours and fake news on social media were fuelling violence.  

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