Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg while testifying to US Senators took full responsibility for the infamous data leak. In his statement, he assured that his company will make every possible effort to ensure the integrity of upcoming elections in India and in other countries.
After the leak of user data of millions of people, a lot of pressure is building upon the company which seems to be rising each day. The company involved in the scandal is Cambridge Analytica which is a British political consultant firm.
Apart from being involved in hampering elections results in the US, the company is reportedly involved in ‘all kinds of projects’ in India and has links with political parties like Congress. As per a former employee, the firm also has an office in India. The 28-year old ex-employee of Cambridge Analytica told that the firm has offices and staff in India. Although he doesn’t remember the details of any national project, he claims to have the documentation on the same.
Talking about Mark Zuckerberg, he has publicly apologized for the data leak and admitted that the company failed to take enough measures to prevent the misuse of the tools in the form of fake news, hate speech, foreign interference in elections, and data privacy. He also revealed that Facebook is constantly struggling with some Russian operators who are seeking to exploit the social media platform.
Meanwhile, in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed serious concern over the issue. As per the sources, he has given clear instructions about data sharing regulation and those servers must be located inside India.
Interestingly, a major portion of user data generated on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Google is stored in servers located internationally. The access to these servers and management of data is regulated by US laws.
The Indian IT Ministry is already investigating the matter and its only concern is to prevent the misuse and manipulation of user data so that it cannot be used for managing electoral processes in India.
