India ‘takes down’ Cambridge Analytica Indian arm website, says BBC

The BBC has reported that the website of Cambridge Analytica’s India arm has been ‘taken down’ by the Indian government. Cambridge Analytica was last week accused of unauthorisedly harvesting information from tens of millions of Facebook profiles in a major breach of user’s privacy.

NH has not yet been able to verify whether the website was blocked by the government, or is unavailable for some other reason.

The ruling BJP and main opposition party Congress have been trading accusations that the other used the controversial data firm for ‘election management’ in India. Union Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday accused Congress of having links with the firm. However Congress, citing information available on the website of Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI)—an Indian affiliate of CA's parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL)—charged that the firm furnished a constituency-wise database to BJP candidates for state and national elections.

An NDTV journalist had yesterday tweeted screenshots from an OBI director’s Linked.in profile, in which he boasts of have helped BJP achieve 272+ seats in the 2014 general election.

Soon after, another NDTV journalist tweeted that the website was "blocked”.

The SCL Group’s website was, however, functional.

On Wednesday, Ravi Shankar Prasad warned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the Indian IT Act is so stringent that he can be summoned to India if "any data theft of Indians is done with the collusion of FB systems”. Prasad added that “We have got stringent powers in the IT Act including summoning you in (sic) India.”

Also read: Congress shows how BJP used Cambridge Analytica to influence elections