Friday Nov 15, 2024
Friday Nov 15, 2024
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London (Reuters): Investigators from Britain’s data watchdog searched the London offices of Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm at the center of a storm over allegations it improperly harvested Facebook data to target US voters.
About 20 officials, wearing black jackets with “ICO Enforcement” on them, arrived at the firm’s central London offices on Friday evening (23 March) soon after a High Court judge granted a search warrant sought by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The officials concluded the search around 0300 GMT on Saturday (24 March). “We will now need to assess and consider the evidence before deciding the next steps and coming to any conclusions,” an ICO spokesperson said in a statement.
The officials, who were let into the building by security guards, were seen checking books and papers through the windows of the second-floor offices on London’s busy New Oxford Street, a Reuters witness said.
ICO Head Elizabeth Denham sought the warrant after a whistleblower said Cambridge Analytica had gathered private information of 50 million Facebook users to support Donald Trump’s 2016 US presidential campaign.
Britain is investigating whether Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, did enough to protect data.
US lawmakers on Friday asked Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to come to Congress to explain to explain how the data got into Cambridge Analytica’s hands, adding to pressure on the firm, which is under fire from investors and advertisers.
Separately on Friday, Britain’s Guardian newspaper said a former Cambridge Analytica political consultant had accused the company’s management of misleading the British public about work it did for a pro-Brexit group before the vote to leave the European Union.
Brittany Kaiser, a business development director at the company from 2014 until earlier this year, told the Guardian that Cambridge Analytica carried out data-crunching and analysis work for Leave.EU, while publicly denying it was doing so.
Arron Banks, a major donor to Leave.EU, told the newspaper that Leave.EU did not receive any data or work from Cambridge Analytica although the UK Independence Party, which also campaigned for Brexit, gave the firm some of its data which the firm analysed.
New Delhi (Reuters): India has set a 31 March deadline for London-based political consultancy Cambridge Analytica to respond to a query on whether it was engaged to improperly harvest Facebook data on Indian citizens, the Information Technology Ministry said.
India’s Information Technology Minister last week warned against any abuse of social media in elections, following reports that the analytics firm improperly accessed information on millions of Facebook users to target US voters.
Friday’s (23 March) notice to the firm followed local media reports that Indian political parties had used the data analytics firm during elections.
India is preparing for a general election in 2019 and several states will elect new assemblies this year and the next.“The fairness of Indian democracy and electoral process is a matter of pride and any attempt to influence the sanctity of the electoral franchise through dubious and questionable means is unacceptable,” the Ministry said in a statement.
The Ministry raised six questions in its notice, from whether the firm had engaged in profiling based on the data collected, to how the data was used and if consent had been secured from the concerned individuals.
The Government was deeply concerned with allegations that data could have been used to influence people’s behaviour, the Ministry said.
The Ministry has threatened to take legal action against companies and individuals engaging in any unauthorised use of such data.
