Friday, July 27, 2018

CBI to probe if Cambridge Analytica misused Indians' Facebook data: Govt 


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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