On Friday, Indian Government has sent a notice to Cambridge Analytica company and asked its response regarding Facebook users’ data breach by March 31. In this issued notice, the company was asked about its involvement in the illegal breach in Indian Facebook users’ profiles to influence their voting behaviour.
This notice also has a question over the list of this company’s clients which engaged this company on this project of collecting such data. There is one more question in this notice and it is regarding about taking Facebook Users’ consent before collecting all such information.
IT ministry released a statement on this Friday. In this statement, ministry shared with media that The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India, has issued a notice to Cambridge Analytica, wherein this much talked breach of propriety and data misuse has been highlighted. The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India stated that Indian Government is deeply concerned about this case. The Government is working for ensuring the protection of the fundamental right of privacy. As a basic work, Indian Government is taking action for the security of data for every citizen of India. We also raised a question about analytics post collection of this data. Was there any profiling done on the basis of such data? IT ministry asked to reply on all relevant queries raised in this notice by end of this month.
Regarding this concern, law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had also given a statement. A few days ago, he said that stringent action can be taken against Facebook. If there is any slight attempt to influence polls by such nonsense of data breach then we might summon Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook.
After the whistle blower news by some TV channels in this regard, BJP had launched attack on Congress. Concerned reports are showing that Congress has relation with Cambridge Analytica and there are possibilities of appointing this company for illegal data mining. Cambridge Analytica is accused of illegal collection of personal data from Facebook Users to influence voting in various other countries too.
Facebook is having around 250 million users only in India. Facebook is now facing this backlash of data breach scandal. Concerning this issue’s importance, Mark Zuckerberg had issued an apology and promised to take vital actions for data protection. Recently, Facebook tweaked its usage policy for third party apps to ensure limited access to user information.