The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday, registered a case against UK-based Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research Ltd for allegedly illegally harvesting the personal data of close to 5.62 lakh Facebook users in India, reported PTI.

According to officials, the collected data was used for profiteering and manipulating elections. The agency registered the case under Indian Penal Code section related to criminal conspiracy and Information Technology Act violations, after nearly 18 months of preliminary enquiry. 

The violations involve receiving stolen computer resource and negligence in handling personal data collected by them, officials said, according to PTI. 

After reports of illegal data harvesting to manipulate elections, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) sent a complaint to the CBI on July 25, 2018.

It is alleged that Kogan of GSR had created an application “Thisisyourdigitallife” that had permission from Facebook to collect certain categories of its users’ data for “research and academic purposes”.

Additional data of not only the 335 users of the application but also of their friends’ network on Facebook was collected, the FIR alleged.

According to the complaint, the data was allegedly sold for commerical gains to Cambridge Analytica, which later used it for profiling users and influencing elections in India.

Although the application had 335 users in India, it was able to harvest data of 5.62 lakh Facebook members who were in their friends’ network, Facebook said.

Cambridge Analytica in its response had told the ministry that it received data of only US-based users from GSR. The company did not respond to further queries, the complaint alleged.

During the enquiry, the CBI contacted all the 335 Indian users of the GSR’s application, out of which only six responded.

They all unanimously told the agency that they were not aware that their personal data and that of their friends was collected, the FIR said.

The users told the agency that they would not have used the application if they had known about collection of personal data, it said.