'Govt to wait for Analytica's reply before action in Facebook data leak case'

The government will wait for response from British data mining firm Cambridge Analytica before deciding on the action to be taken in the Facebook data leak case, a source said today.

Analytica has been accused of harvesting personal information of over millions of Facebook users illegally to influence polls in several countries.

US-based social media giant Facebook had said earlier in the day that 5.62 lakh people in India were potentially affected by global data leak, involving Analytica.

A senior government official confirmed that the IT ministry has received Facebook's response to its notice.

The Indian government will wait for response of Cambridge Analytica before deciding on action to be taken in Facebook data leak case, the source said.

Facebook has over 20 crore users in the country and the Indian government last month had shot-off notices to both Facebook and Analytica on the data breach issue.

Facebook had yesterday admitted that data on about 87 million people mostly in the US may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.