Which Indian Party has Connection to Rogue Data Firm Cambridge Analytica?

In an explosive undercover video released by UK’s Channel 4, top executives of Cambridge Analytica (CA), the data consultancy firm behind Trump’s campaign, are shown bragging about how they have intervened in 200 elections around the world including India. The executives are shown as claiming that they can “send Ukranian girls” or offer bribes to the opponent candidates and release the recorded videos into the “bloodstream of the Internet” to bring them down.

The Indian mention has sent shock waves in the country with several key Assembly elections slated for this year, and then the General Election next year. The previous 2014 election was characterized by claims of extensive use of data analytics, especially by BJP which stormed to power. The sting video however does not give details of CA’s India connection.

A Channel 4 reporter posing as a Sri Lankan fixer acting on behalf of a rich family held a series of meetings with Alexander Nix, CEO of the company, Mark Turnbull, the managing director of CA Political Global, and the company’s chief data officer, Dr Alex Tayler. These meetings which were held in several London hotels were secretly filmed.

Cambridge Analytica is the same company that has allegedly stolen personal data of 50 million Facebook users and used it to direct personalized advertisements the 2016 US presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. They were hired by the Trump campaign for $5.9 million. Earlier, during the primaries they worked for the failed campaign of Senator Ted Cruz for $5.8 million.

The undercover video shows the officials sitting in plush conference rooms having drinks and aperitifs, while boasting how they work in clandestine situations.

“We’ll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the Internet,” CEO Nix is shown saying.

At another point he says that they could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.

Once they have the film, CA secretly releases it on the Net without revealing who is putting it out, Channel 4 video showed the officials as saying.

Turnbull, says: “… we just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again… like a remote control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’, the next question is, ‘who’s put that out?’.”

Nix is shown explaining how they will conceal the identity of the clients and CA: “we can set up fake IDs and websites, we can be students doing research projects attached to a university, we can be tourists, there’s so many options we can look at. I have lots of experience in this.”

CA was initially much adulated in the West for taking data analytics to new heights. In public expositions, Alexander Nix had said that micro-targeting of ads by using personal information was the future of campaigns. He had explained that elections were about emotions like fear. So, to win over people it is necessary to analyse personal data like browsing history, movements, purchases, social media posts etc. to exactly pinpoint what are the persons deepest emotions, especially fears. Then messaging (through ads) can be targeted with excellent results.

In a statement issued late last night, after Channel 4 aired the sting operation video, CA rejected the allegations saying the film was “edited and scripted to grossly misrepresent the nature of those conversations and how the company conducts its business”. It claimed that they try to “tease out any unethical or illegal intentions” of clients by humouring them and playing out hypothetical scenarios.

However, the CEO Alexander Nix acknowledged that on this occasion he misjudged the situation: “In playing along with this line of conversation, and partly to spare our ‘client’ from embarrassment, we entertained a series of ludicrous hypothetical scenarios. I am aware how this looks, but it is simply not the case. I must emphatically state that Cambridge Analytica does not condone or engage in entrapment, bribes or so-called ‘honeytraps’, and nor does it use untrue material for any purpose”.

The Facebook account steal, followed by the latest Channel 4 revelations have created a storm across the world with European regulators demanding a probe and activists across the world seeking accountability.