FB data breach: Govt issues notice to Cambridge Analytica

March 23, 2018 20:36

The government today issued notice to Cambridge Analytica -- the firm at the centre of Facebook users' data breach -- seeking its response by March 31 on whether it was involved in misuse of data to profile Indians and influence their voting behaviour.

The notice also sought the company's response on the entities which engaged Cambridge Analytica, the method used by it for possession of data and whether consent was taken from users.

"The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India, has issued a notice... to Cambridge Analytica, wherein the serious breach of propriety and misuse of data intended to profile and influence voting behaviour has been highlighted," the IT ministry said in a statement.

"Was there any profiling done on the basis of such data?," the ministry sought to know from the company on all queries raised by end of the month.

Earlier this week, Law and IT Minster Prasad had warned social media giant Facebook of "stringent" action for any attempt to influence polls through data theft, and had even threatened to summon its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, if needed.

The warning came as BJP launched a scathing attack on the Congress, questioning the party on its relation with Cambridge Analytica, the data mining firm accused of harvesting personal user data from Facebook illegally to influence polls in several countries.

Facebook, which has over two billion users globally, including over 200 million in India, had faced backlash on the data scandal issue, prompting Zuckerberg to issue an apology for the "major breach of trust", and promising to take steps to protect user data. -- PTI

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