CBI registers case against 2 UK-based companies for illegal data harvesting

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against two UK-based firms over allegations of illegal harvesting of users' data from social media platform Facebook.

As per a statement from the CBI, a preliminary enquiry was conducted based on a complaint from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The enquiry revealed that the founder and director of one of the compes had allegedly created an app called "thisisyourdigitallife", which was 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 Facebook," the statement said.

The complainant further alleged that 335 Indians had installed the app and the data of approximately 5.62 lakh 'Facebook friends' of these users had been unauthorizedly harvested by the app without their consent.

The statement further said that the company had allegedly conspired with the second UK-based company in 2014 and gave the right to use this illegally harvested data for commercial purposes.

The investigation is currently underway.

( With inputs from ANI )