Facebook Won’t Be Misused During Indian Elections; New Measures To Prevent Data Breach!
India has some major upcoming state polls this year with the Lok Sabha general elections to happen in less than a year in early 2019.
The recent Facebook data scandal has spurred a new digital war. With its link to manipulation of votes in the last American election, governments around the world are now concerned about Facebook’s involvement in each of these constitutions.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister of Electronics and IT, has straightway warned Facebook about data manipulation in the upcoming Indian elections and said, will ban Facebook in India if needed.
The government is now planning some long-term strategies to secure user data. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg came out and apologized, and said the company will be taking a series of measures to ensure that the platform is safe and that user data is not misused to influence any elections this year in India and elsewhere.
India has some major upcoming state polls this year with the Lok Sabha general elections to happen in less than a year in early 2019.
The Indian government is making sure there is no involvement of Facebook in manipulating any votes. It is also planning to draft a protection framework by next quarter. The government is very concerned about the recent Facebook data scandal and will address issues such as collection of user data, consent of the users, penalties and compensation, the code of conduct and an enforcement model.
Indian Elections – India’s Take on Facebook
The Election Commission (EC) is planning to examine the facts which are related to the Cambridge Analytica incident and try and find whether Facebook may have any potential interference in the upcoming Indian elections.
Electronics and IT minister RS Prasad recently alleged that Facebook had manipulated the results with Congress at the Gujarat elections. Though Congress has denied any such participation, and in turn alleged that BJP used Facebook to manipulate votes.
The Indian government will soon initiate an enquiry to check whether Facebook had any role or may play a role in any unfair practices related to elections in the country. The government may summon Mark Zuckerberg if required and the minister has warned all the internet companies of stringent actions if any influence to the electoral process is found out.
Facebook has been accused of supporting agencies for malpractices like micro-voter targeting and manipulating users.
Facebook’s Measures To Prevent Data Misuse
Amidst a lot of backlash from users and different governments from around the world, Facebook has decided to take stronger protections to prevent the misuse of any data in the future.
From now on, the company will be allowing the users to see all the apps which are being used by Facebook for an easier option to retract their access to user data. The privacy settings will now feature more options to enhance user experience.
The company will soon start an investigation of all apps which are listed on Facebook and have access to any sort of information from Facebook accounts. Also, they will conduct a full audit of any app which had been suspected of suspicious activity.
Any users affected by the misuse of their data will be informed accordingly. Other steps have also been taken to prevent any potential data leaks in the future, which includes turning off the access of unused apps and restriction of Facebook’s login data.
