CBI gets fresh info from Facebook on voters’ data harvesting

The central agency had, last year, registered a preliminary enquiry, a precursor to the FIR, against CA after allegations surfaced that the company used personal information harvested from 87 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 US presidential election.

The Central Bureau of Investigation is analysing the fresh additional information shared by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica (CA) in connection with its probe related to alleged data harvesting of Indian voters from the social networking platform, officials familiar with the developments told HT.

CBI had sought additional information from Facebook and CA, based in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively, on the data collection methods adopted by the latter. (REUTERS)

The central agency had, last year, registered a preliminary enquiry, a precursor to the FIR, against CA after allegations surfaced that the company used personal information harvested from 87 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 US presidential election. An official said CBI had sought additional information from Facebook and CA, based in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively, on the data collection methods adopted by the latter.

Based on the details received in the reply, the CBI had dispatched more questions with some “specific queries” to the companies earlier this year, which have been provided by them, the officer said. Facebook has more than 20 crore users in India.