London’s Evening Standard published on Friday what appears to be the first concrete evidence of the long-suspected involvement of Cambridge Analytica (the name of the US company, the UK companies go under a variety of other names but for convenience CAnal’s name is used). They have found a 10 page document prepared for the Leave.EU campaign headed “Big Data Solutions for the EU Referendum”
The document was made for Leave.EU, one of the two main Brexit campaign groups, in a pitch for business. It bragged: “We use vast amounts of data, including consumer histories, lifestyle information... and “state-of-the-art psychological analysis.”
Cambridge Analytica said it could pick out likely Leave supporters by identifying their “top-line issues” and “voters’ personality traits” using its own data. It said Leave.EU would have to pass over its own Facebook data to get the full benefit.
Explaining the power of its analysis, Cambridge Analytica (CA) said: “Voters and businesses alike see the coming referendum as an opportunity to voice their concerns over issues caused by Britain’s membership of the EU. Whether it is regulation, border controls or Britain’s international profile, British people have real worries.”
Quite coinicidentally, electors were micro-targetted with anti-EU propaganda that matched their main concerns. There was already evidence of early involvement of CAnal with the Leave.EU campaign.
The founder of Leave.EU, Arron Banks, referred in his book The Bad Boys Of Brexit to CA being “hired” in October 2015. But he told the committee this simply referred to an early meeting and an intention to work together if Leave.EU won lead status, entitling it to spend up to £7 million, get a free mailshot, TV broadcasts and £600,000 public funds, in the referendum campaign. He insisted the group “devised and implemented its own social media strategy ... without any input from Cambridge Analytica”.
Confusingly, a CA staffer, Brittany Kaiser, appeared on the platform of a Leave.EU press conference in November 2015 alongside Mr Banks, seemingly to present their campaign plans. She has since left the data company.
The Election Commission is currently investigating whether Leave.EU received no services, paid or unpaid from CAnal. They were required to declare any on their return of expenses made to the Election Commission but there was no reference on it. That could constitute a criminal offence.
Separately, the Information Commissioner is seeking a warrant to find out if CAnal had held or processed any illegally obtained information. The Commons all-party Digital, Cultural, Media and Sport Committee has called on Zuckerberg to clarify inconsistencies in the evidence given to them by his employees and recalled Alexander Nix, the “suspended” CEO of CAnal, to clarify his evidence.
The Evening Standard article goes on to list a number of instances where social media were used to, for example, attack Conservatives who were attempting to water down the Act setting up the BREXIT referendum.
In the UK put simply it is illegal to process personal data unless you have the data subject’s specific permission to do so. UK companies safeguard themselves by having the same “yeah send me all your junk mail” and “yeah, you can sell my name and details to a big data company” boxes unchecked so a customer has to actively click them. The use of personal data collected surupticiously may well be illegal athough the criminal penalties under the Data Protection Act 1989 only allow for fines. It would take some fairly strong evidence to prove a conspiracy to do so although long prison sentences might result.