Ravi Shankar Prasad said the probe by CBI will determine whether Cambridge Analytica violated the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the IPC.
The
Centre has asked the CBI to probe the alleged misuse of data of
India's Facebook
users by British political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica, Law
and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
In
a significant move ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Prasad said the
probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) will determine
whether Cambridge Analytica violated the Information Technology Act,
2000 and the Indian Penal Code(IPC). The data mining and analysis
firm earlier faced allegations it used personal information harvested
from 87 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016
US presidential election.
As
members in the Upper House expressed concern over social media
platforms being used to spread rumours and fake news, Prasad also
said the government has asked them to provide technological solutions
so that verified fake news and provocative messages can be filtered.
Cambridge
Analytica(CA) is at the centre of a storm in the country over the
alleged breach of Facebook user data seeking information about its
clients in India and whether it had harvested their user profiles.
The controversy had triggered a war of words between the BJP and the
Congress.
Prasad
while responding to the concerns by members during a calling
attention notice on the misuse of social media and propagation of
fake news causing unrest and violence referred to the reported breach
at Facebook where the data of a large number of users were allegedly
compromised by Cambridge Analytica.
He
said notices were immediately issued to the two companies and their
response sought.
"Facebook
responded that they will streamline their internal processes
regarding the handling of personal data. They stated that the case of
Cambridge Analytica was a case of breach of trust. They promised to
take various other steps to ensure that such breaches do not recur,"
Prasad said.
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