India warns Facebook on data breach

Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has warned Facebook that if found that the social media giant is involved in any data breach of Indians, the government will take strict action against them including the summoning of Mark Zuckerberg to India. “If Facebook is found to be involved in data breach of Indians, we will take very strict action against them including the summoning of Mark Zuckerberg to India,” said the minister.

“Today, 20 crore Indians are on Facebook. If the data of the Indians is shared through facebook, we have the stringent IT Act. We can even summon Facebook officials for data sharing,” added the minister.

Reports are that Global Science Research harvested information relating to 50 million Facebook profiles and provided the data to UK-based political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

WhatsApp messaging service co-founder has urged users to “delete” Facebook amid a massive data harvesting scandal in which information of 50 million people was leaked allegedly to influence the 2016 US presidential election. WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton left Facebook in September last year. WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in February, 2014 for USD 19 billion.