CBI registers case against 2 UK-based firms for illegal harvesting of users data from Facebook

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Jan 22, 2021

6:55PM

CBI registers case against 2 UK-based firms for illegal harvesting of users data from Facebook

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The Central Bureau of Investigation, CBI has registered a case against two UK-based firms on allegation of illegal harvesting of users data from Facebook social media platform. Earlier, a preliminary enquiry was conducted by CBI based on a complaint from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The Agency in a statement said that it was revealed in the enquiry that the founder and Director of the first UK-based company had allegedly created an app 'thisisyourdigitallife' and this app was authorized to collect specific data of its users in Facebook as per their platform policy. It was alleged that the app illegally harvested additional data of FB users and of their friends on FB.

It was further alleged that 335 Indians had installed the app and data of approximately 5.62 lakh FB friends of these users was unauthorizedly harvested by the app without their consent. It was also alleged that the company entered into a conspiracy with a second UK-based company during 2014 and gave the right to use this illegally harvested data to a second company for commercial purposes.