CBI registers FIR against Cambridge Analytica, Global Science Research heads for 2018 Facebook data leak

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has lodged an FIR against Alexander Nix and Aleksandr Kogan – representatives of Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research Limited – for their involvement in the illegal harvesting of data through Facebook that took place in 2018. As part of the data leak controversy, Kogan developed an app called ‘This is Your Digital Life’ that allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect the personal details of 80 million Facebook users around the world. This data included demographic information, page likes on Facebook, contents of private messages, etc, and was possibly used for profiling and influencing elections in India.
As per the FIR, Facebook conveyed to the Indian government that 335 users Indian users had installed this app. Potentially, it was estimated that the data of 5.62 lakh friends of these persons was also harvested by the app.