The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against UK-based political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica for the alleged illegal harvesting of personal data of 5.62 lakh Facebook users in India.

The agency has also named Global Science Research (GSRL), another company UK company in the same case.

The CBI had launched a preliminary enquiry in 2018 that revealed criminal offences committed by Cambridge Analytica and GSRL. The two companies have now been booked for criminal conspiracy and cyber crime.

In its response to the CBI's queries, Mark Zuckerberg-led Facebook had said GSRL illegally collected personal data of around 5.62 lakh users in India and shared it with Cambridge Analytica. It is alleged that the consulting firm then used the data to influence elections in India.

Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad had informed Parliament in July 2018 that there will be a CBI probe into the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data theft case.