However, the aggregated data supplied to the ABS was at the second lowest SA2 Level and some of these statistcal areas have populations of well under 3,000 residents according to 2016 Census data. Which makes the task of matching names to some of the tracked population movements just that much easier for a demographer or determined hacker.
Showing posts with label data mining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label data mining. Show all posts
Wednesday 25 April 2018
Did the Australian Bureau of Statistics spy on Telstra customers at one remove in 2016?
“…with
its near-complete coverage of the population, mobile device data is now seen as
a feasible way to estimate temporary populations” [Australian Bureau of Statistics Demographer Andrew
Howe, quoted in The
Australian Bureau of Statistics Tracked People By Their Mobile Device Data
at Medium, 23 April 2018]
Cryptoparty
founder. Amnesty Australia 'Humanitarian Media Award' recipient 2014
and activist Asher Wolf recently reported that in 2016 the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS) without informing or seeking permission from
mobile phone users ran a secretive, publicly-funded tracking program via
signals emitted by the mobile phones of an unspecified number of people, in
order to find out where they travelled over the course of an unspecified number
of days and how long they stayed at each location.
A
presentation of the basic details of this pilot study was made by the ABS
researcher leading the pilot at a Spatial Information Day in
Adelaide on 11 August 2017.
A second
ABS researcher also made a presentation on the day.
Spatial
Information Day (which has the ABS as one of its sponsors) is
characterised by the organisers as
an annual educational and promotional event and was first held just on 18 years
ago.
The
Australian Bureau of Statistics was swift to reply to Asher Wolf's Medium article,
stating that it has only been supplied with hourly agregate data by the telco
(Telstra) which
did not identify individuals.
However, the aggregated data supplied to the ABS was at the second lowest SA2 Level and some of these statistcal areas have populations of well under 3,000 residents according to 2016 Census data. Which makes the task of matching names to some of the tracked population movements just that much easier for a demographer or determined hacker.
However, the aggregated data supplied to the ABS was at the second lowest SA2 Level and some of these statistcal areas have populations of well under 3,000 residents according to 2016 Census data. Which makes the task of matching names to some of the tracked population movements just that much easier for a demographer or determined hacker.
Given recent
less than transparent disclosures by data mining corporations concerning data
collection/retention practices, readers might forgive me for waiting to see if
the other shoe drops in this ABS-Telsta data mining and privacy matter.
One might say
that thanks to Ms. Wolf we are all being educated further about big data and
the ethics of data collection.
This is the
response Ms. Wolf received when she contacted privacy experts concerning the
pilot study:
“I
find this tracking of people using their telephone location data without their
knowledge and consent extremely concerning. The fact that the telecoms company
allowed this data to be handed to a third party, and then for that third party
to be a government agency compounds the breach of trust for the people whose
data was involved,” said Angela Daly, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow
and Senior Lecturer in Queensland University of Technology’s Faculty of Law,
research associate in the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society and
Digital Rights Watch board member.
“After
the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal this is yet another example of why we
need much tougher restrictions on what companies and the government can do with
our data.”
Electronic
Frontiers Australia board member Justin Warren also pointed out that while
there are beneficial uses for this kind of information, “…the ABS should be
treading much more carefully than it is. The ABS damaged its reputation with
its bungled management of the 2016 Census, and with its failure to properly
consult with civil society about its decision to retain names and addresses.
Now we discover that the ABS is running secret tracking experiments on the
population?”
“Even
if the ABS’ motives are benign, this behaviour — making ethically dubious
decisions without consulting the public it is experimenting on — continues to
damage the once stellar reputation of the ABS.”
“This
kind of population tracking has a dark history. During World War II, the US Census
Bureau used this kind of tracking information to round up Japanese-Americans
for internment. Census data was used extensively by Nazi Germany to target
specific groups of people. The ABS should be acutely aware of these historical
abuses, and the current tensions within society that mirror those earlier, dark
days all too closely.”
“The
ABS must work much harder to ensure that it is conducting itself with the broad
support of the Australian populace. Sadly, it appears that the ABS increasingly
considers itself above the mundane concerns of those outside its ivory tower.
This arrogance must end.”
“For
us to continue to trust the ABS with our most intimate details, the ABS must
maintain society’s trust. Conducting experiments on citizens without seeming to
care about our approval or consent undermines that trust.”
International
privacy advocates also raised concerns about the study.
“Data
the companies, like telcos, collect inevitably becomes very attractive to
government agencies looking to track, monitor, and survey people. Like here,
users are rarely informed, let alone consent to these uses. The impact on
privacy rights is severe: location information (especially combined with other
sensitive data) can reveal startlingly detailed information about your life
(where you live, work), connections (who you talk to or visit), preferences
(what you buy and when), and health (doctors and pharmacies frequented),”
stated Amie Stepanovich, U.S. Policy Manager for digital rights organisation
Access Now.
Read
Asher Wolf’s full article at https://medium.com/@Asher_Wolf/the-australian-bureau-of-statistics-tracked-people-by-their-mobile-device-data-and-didnt-tell-them-16df094de31
Labels:
Australian Bureau of Statistics,
data mining,
ethics,
privacy,
safety
Monday 23 April 2018
Away from the spotlight of congressional hearings Zuckerberg and Facebook Inc. show their true colours – implementing weaker privacy protection for 1.5 billion users
The Guardian, 19 April 2018:
Facebook has moved
more than 1.5 billion users out of reach of European privacy law, despite a
promise from Mark Zuckerberg to apply the “spirit” of the legislation globally.
In a tweak to its terms
and conditions, Facebook is shifting the responsibility for all users outside
the US, Canada and the EU from its international HQ in Ireland to its main
offices in California. It means that those users will now be on a site governed
by US law rather than Irish law.
The move is due to come
into effect shortly before General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into
force in Europe on 25 May. Facebook is liable under GDPR for fines of up to 4%
of its global turnover – around $1.6bn – if it breaks the new data protection
rules.
The shift highlights the
cautious phrasing Facebook has applied to its promises around GDPR. Earlier
this month, when asked whether his company would promise GDPR protections
to its users worldwide, Zuckerberg demurred. “We’re still nailing down details
on this, but it should directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing,” he said.
A week later, during his
hearings in front of the US Congress, Zuckerberg was again
asked if he would promise that GDPR’s protections would apply to all
Facebook users. His answer was affirmative – but only referred to GDPR
“controls”, rather than “protections”. Worldwide, Facebook has rolled
out a suite of tools to let users exercise their rights under GDPR,
such as downloading and deleting data, and the company’s new
consent-gathering controls are similarly universal.
Facebook told Reuters
“we apply the same privacy protections everywhere, regardless of whether your
agreement is with Facebook Inc or Facebook Ireland”. It said the change was
only carried out “because EU law requires specific language” in mandated
privacy notices, which US law does not.
In a statement to the
Guardian, it added: “We have been clear that we are offering everyone who uses
Facebook the same privacy protections, controls and settings, no matter where
they live. These updates do not change that.”
Privacy researcher
Lukasz Olejnik disagreed, noting that the change carried large ramifications
for the affected users. “Moving around one and a half billion users into other
jurisdictions is not a simple copy-and-paste exercise,” he said.
“This is a major and
unprecedented change in the data privacy landscape. The change will amount to
the reduction of privacy guarantees and the rights of users, with a number of
ramifications, notably for consent requirements. Users will clearly lose
some existing rights, as US standards are lower than those in Europe.
“Data protection
authorities from the countries of the affected users, such as New Zealand and
Australia, may want to reassess this situation and analyse the situation.
Even
if their data privacy regulators are less rapid than those in Europe, this
event is giving them a chance to act. Although it is unclear how active they
will choose to be, the global privacy regulation landscape is changing, with
countries in the world refining their approach. Europe is clearly on the
forefront of this competition, but we should expect other countries to
eventually catch up.” [my yellow highlighting]
NOTE:
The Australian Dept. of Human Services still continues to invite those who use its welfare services to visit its five Facebook pages on which it will:
* post about payments and services
* answer questions
* give useful tips
* share news, and
* give updates on relevant issue
All associated data (including questions and answers) will of course be captured by Facebook, then collated, transferred, stored overseas, monetised and possibly 'weaponised' during the next election campaign cycle which occurs in the area visitors to these pages live.
Tuesday 10 April 2018
So many Newspoll losses mean democratic processes at risk as Turnbull Government strives to claw back political ground
“The Coalition now trails Labor by 47.5 per cent to
52.5 per cent in two-party terms across the four polls. This reflects a 48:52
result from Fairfax/Ipsos, the same from Newspoll, the same from Essential and
a 46:54 result from ReachTel on March 29.” [The
Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April 2016]
From
May 2014 to September 2015 the Abbott
Coalition Government experienced 30 consecutive negative Newspoll federal voting intentions
opinion polls*.
After
the sacking of Tony Abbott by his party and the installation of Malcolm
Turnbull as prime minister the Turnbull Coalition
Government saw 12 positive Newspolls before this second rendition
of a Coalition federal government itself experienced 30 consecutive negative
Newspolls from 12 September 2016 to 9 April 2018.
This
polling history indicates that the Liberal-National federal government is
likely to have only had the national electorate’s approval for around ten of
the last thirty-seven calendar months.
According
to the Australian Electoral Commission;
As
House of Representatives and half-Senate elections are usually held
simultaneously, the earliest date for such an election would be Saturday 4
August 2018. As the latest possible date for a half-Senate election is Saturday
18 May 2019, the latest possible date for a simultaneous (half-Senate and House
of Representatives) election is also Saturday 18 May 2019.
Given
that (i) between them the Abbott and
Turnbull governments have
experienced experienced only 12 positive
polls in the last 68 Newspolls; and (ii)
the Liberal Party has already admitted that during its successful March 2018 South Australian
election it had utilised
the services of one of the known “bad actors” on the international election campaign
consultancy scene, the US-based data miner i360;
it is highly likely that “bad actors” will be employed once more and over the
next four to thirteen months voters will be subjected to a barrage of
misinformation, bald lies, vicious rumour and false promises from both
Coalition politicians and their supporters in mainstream and social media.
Voters will have to fact check what they hear and read as never before.
Voters will have to fact check what they hear and read as never before.
* A
federal voting intentions Newspoll is
considered negative for one or other of the two main political parties based on two party preferred percentage results.
Newspolls surveys normally occur every two to three weeks outside of election campaign periods when they are likely to occur more often.
Newspoll results can be found at https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll.
Newspolls surveys normally occur every two to three weeks outside of election campaign periods when they are likely to occur more often.
Newspoll results can be found at https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll.
Friday 6 April 2018
Are Facebook and those unethical data miners already manipulating voters in Australian elections?
Is the 'American disease' already making Australian democracy ill?
On 27 March 2018 the blog Queen Victoria observed:
During the recent South
Australian election, take a guess how many Labor policy announcements made the
front page of The Advertiser, the State’s only major newspaper? If you guessed
zero, you would almost be right. In fact, there were only two – a promise by
Labor to invest in TAFE, and even then it was half a tiny corner article, worth
36 words, with the other half given to a Liberal election pledge, and Labor’s
loans for solar panels and batteries, again a handful of words, and sitting
beside a Liberal promise. You’ll need a magnifying glass to spot the articles
on the front pages below..
Looking at those front pages it was easy to see what Victoria Rollison meant.
But was it more than just News Corp playing Murdoch's favourite game of Labor bashing?
Earlier, on
17 March 2018 the day of the South
Australian state election (which the Liberals subsequently won)
journalist Mark Kenny wrote in the Weekend
Australian that:
Like
Turnbull in 2016, Marshall and his team have been criticised for not being
sufficiently aggressive about Labor’s failings. But they have run short, sharp
and effective negative TV commercials (the sort that bewilderingly never came
in the federal campaign) around the theme of “I’ve had enough, Jay” which
neatly captures the mood for a corrective change. This is a good example of how
paid advertising can deliver tough messages if politicians are reluctant.
Yet
a sense of coasting has worried many Liberal supporters and observers. When I
told a group of Adelaide Liberals last month that Marshall and his team seemed
insufficiently combative towards Labor and Xenophon, a frontbencher pulled me
aside afterwards and showed me his phone. He argued I misunderstood their
methods, that public assertions and media debates were not the main game. He
showed me his i360 app, a new campaigning tool that has
revolutionised the Liberals’ marginal seats campaigning.
Through i360 the
SA Liberals believe they have progressed to a new level of targeted
campaigning, leaping far ahead of what has been used before by either major
party in Australia. If they perform well, we can expect a technological and
tactical quantum leap forward at the next federal campaign.
In
his quick demonstration, the MP called up a marginal seat, much like finding a
suburb on Google Maps, then zoomed in to a street where pins identified
addresses deemed to house swinging voters. Deeper dives on households contained
genders, ages, voting intentions or lack thereof as well as policy interests.
The information is collated from the party’s existing Feedback system, updates
from doorknocking and calls, responses to surveys conducted via email, online
or phone calls plus census data and the harvesting of social media data. This
is Big Brother meets grassroots campaigning. Neither the data nor the
technology is much use without quality information fed in and strong analysis
leading to the right strategies, along with diligent personalised attention in
follow-up visits and communications.
This
is leading-edge campaigning, as i360’s website explains. “Data is the
difference,” it proclaims, describing its “extensive political identification”
through information collected from “in-person, phone and online surveys, as
well as through partner relationships in addition to lifestyle and consumer
data” purchased from “top-tier” providers. “Our data is further enhanced by our
suite of predictive models, filling in gaps and helping us build the most
complete profile for every individual possible,” it says.
Billionaire
US Republican sponsors Charles and David Koch are major investors in the firm,
which openly canvasses only for “free-market” candidates. The SA Liberals
purchased a product licence and have worked with i360 to modify
systems for compulsory and preferential voting. Motivated by the frustration of
2014 where, despite a huge popular vote win, just a few hundred votes in the
right seats would have made all the difference, Marshall has driven this
innovative approach. He and novice Liberal state director Sascha Meldrum
visited the US in August 2016 to assess the system before other campaign
strategists joined the training and implementation.
If the Liberals surprise on
the upside today, SA’s expertise will be immediately sought after for the
looming Victoria, NSW and federal campaigns.
Long
lead times help and the SA Liberals have had more than a year to build up data
and, crucially, follow up on targeted voters more than once. This is where
grassroots organisation, numbers on the ground and diligence are essential,
lest intelligence is wasted for lack of personal politicking, but the potential
for efficiency, personalised material and two-way feedback to shape policies
and messages is huge. Even in an age when you can get an app for everything, no
app can win you an election. And I still think public policy differentiation
and aggression are crucial.But if the Liberals form a majority even after the
unprecedented Xenophon disruption, expect to hear a lot more about i360 and
data-driven campaigning.
So what
exactly is i360?
This is what
it said of itself at www.i-360.com on 31 March
2018:
At i360® we believe
THE DATA IS THE DIFFERENCE. But what does that mean? Simply put, it means
integrating data in everything we do to produce the most effective outcomes for
every one of our clients.
At the core of the
i360 operation is a comprehensive database of all 18+ American consumers
and voters containing thousands of pieces of individual and aggregated
information that give us the full picture of who they are, where they live,
what they do and what is happening around them. Leveraging this and our
capabilities in data science, analytics, technology development and
advertising, we help clients take their efforts to the next level by embracing
the concept of truly borderless data.
i360 boast of these statistics:
i360 boast of these statistics:
Snapshot of section of i360 home page, 31 March 2018
i360 has a multiple presences on Facebook eg. i360online and i360Gov.com. [IP addresses are deliberately not supplied in this post and caution is urged if readers decide to vist these pages]
i360 aslo boasts of playing a "crucial" part in the South Australian election on its
"Newsroom" page.
This
is what is said of this company elsewhere………
The
Real News, 29
March 2018:
Kochs
have a far more sophisticated operation called i360. And they track, as you
heard in the little clip from my film, 1800 pieces of data on you dynamically
and on a continuous basis. They basically know your credit card purchases, they
know your cable viewing habits. This is a lot deeper into your guts and soul
and privacy than even your Facebook profile from Cambridge Analytica. And also
you have a very similar operation used by Karl Rove. That's the guy that was
known as Bush's brain, though Bush calls him Turd Blossom. This is the, Karl
Rove was the engineer of some of the creepiest and possibly illegal activities
behind the Bush campaigns. He's still out there with his own database operation
called Data Trust, whose main client is the Republican National Committee.
These
operations do more than grab some of your private information or just your
Facebook profiles. Some of their activities have actually unquestionably bent
elections not just by convincing you do things, you know, their idea is to try
to zombify, you know, know everything about you and manipulate you. But
sometimes they go way, way beyond that in their operations to win elections….
They're
targeting you because they know very personal things about you. They literally
know, as Mark Sweetland says, we're not making that up as an example, it's
really true. For example, i360 knows if you downloaded porn and then order
Chinese food before you voted. They can use that information to manipulate how
you vote. And by the way, deviously, whether you vote at all. They can convince
you not to vote. That's a real powerful tool that they have. That's part of the
game, is convincing you not to vote. So that's one of things that they do…..
…they
can convince you. For example, a lot of the, lot of the targeting about Hillary
Clinton was not to get you to vote for Trump but to get voters who, for
example, voted for Bernie Sanders or others, to convince them not to vote at
all. And that was very, very effective, for example, in Wisconsin, where
according to a University of Wisconsin study, about 50000 people, mostly
students in Madison County and Milwaukee, didn't vote because they were
convinced that, that Hillary was evil enough that it just didn't matter. They
may be crying now, but the but the-…..
Encourage
apathy and saying that your vote doesn't matter. And that's one of the things
that they're very good at. But the other is very, some of it's not too subtle,
OK. For example, in Wisconsin the Koch brothers, a spinoff from i360, one of
the operators there working with Kochs sent out e-mails, and sent out social ,
sent out e-mails to people on their databases who own guns, who live in rural
areas and normally vote by mail-in ballot. And they sent them messages saying,
protect your guns. And these are also all Democrats. Protect your guns and
vote. Make sure you send your absentee ballot to this address on this date. The
address was wrong, and the date was too late to get your vote counted. So that
was one way that Scott Walker, for example, won his against his recall in the
recall referendum. Then they rolled it out. The same trick. Wrong date, wrong
address for your absentee ballots to minority and Democratic voters in North
Carolina. And then throughout the South.
So
some of this is really fraudulently stealing your vote away. And that's just,
that was the i360 spinoff. Then you have Data Trust, which is Karl Rove's
operation. they used an operation which I uncovered working with the Guardian
and BBC called caging. And what caging is is you send letters, Karl Rove used
his databases to target, for example, students, black students in black
colleges who were away from their school on summer vacation. They are
registered, these were students registered, for example, in the swing state of
Florida. And they knew that they weren't at their at their voting addresses
even though they are legal voters because they were home for the vacations.
They sent letters. When the letters marked Do Not Forward came back to the
Republican National Committee, those voters were challenge as not existing, and
they lost their vote. They sent these letters as well to black soldiers and
airmen at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. They sent letters to men at
homeless shelters you don't always get their mail. And as a result they used,
they used this information to challenge the right of those voters' ballots to
be counted. If they mailed them in their ballots would be junked. If they try
to show up to vote they were blocked from voting. That's the ugly, ugly and
truly actually illegal use of these databases, and that's just some examples
we've uncovered.
Well,
I think that Cambridge Analytica, which is like I say, the least sophisticated,
and they try to use brain massaging. By the way, they also use other tactics.
One of the services that they offer, I just you know, is to is to say that
they'll set up your opponent, political opponent, with hookers and tape them.
So it's not just, they've got that database and then they would, of course, use
their social networking thing to blow it all up. But it will have a huge impact
on the 2018 election. A bigger impact on 2020.
And
this includes other operations that these database guys are working on. One of
them you mentioned, a guy Kris Kobach, secretary of state of Kansas. He is
Trump's what I call Vote Thief in Chief. He was officially appointed to run
Trump's so-called vote fraud commission. One of the databases he uses is a roll
crosscheck, where he gives lists of voters he says are registered or actually
vote in two states in a single election, which is illegal. He has claimed with
Donald Trump that three million people voted twice, mostly voters of color. And
I'm the only journalist to actually have, I have a copy of the of of his list
of double voters. The three million double voters. And it's people with names
like Jose Garcia, and David Lee, and John Black. These are just common names of
voters of color, but not, you know, obviously not common for Republicans.
But
you'll see names in this, for example, Maria Cristina Hernandez is supposed to
be the same voter as Maria Inez Hernandez. That person is supposed to be the
same voter who voted one in Virginia and one in Georgia. That's their claim.
And those voters named Garcia and Hernandez lose their vote. On that list, two
million of those accused voters, people accused of voting twice, don't have the
same middle name. Two million people accused don't have the same middle name,
and they are removing, this is important, they're actually removing hundreds of
thousands of people from the voter rolls as we speak. In fact without, without
this game, this database game called Crosscheck, which is Trump and Kobach's
database, Trump would not have won in 2016…..
It's
serious stuff. Because if it were simply a matter of targeted advertising,
convince you to vote for their candidate, that's all right.
But
Cambridge Analytica has been, their, their chiefs were caught on tape by
Channel 4, one of the outlets I work with, by Channel 4 investigators in
Britain, saying that they will create fake news about your opponent and use
their social networking abilities and use their particular targeting of
individuals, their social networking habits, to spread fake news about your
opponent. And they said we can do it in a way that no one will know that we've
been involved. They said they successfully did this already in other countries.
We don't even know how many countries because they make a point of keeping
their involvement hidden. This is very, very scary stuff. They are deliberately
creating, Donald Trump's screaming about fake news, but he employed the fake
news generator. That's the big problem. That's one of the very big problems of
Cambridge Analytica, and I know that we have that same problem with Data Trust,
i360, and some of the others.
Wednesday 4 April 2018
Are those nasty digital chickens coming home to roost for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook?
In 2014 rumours began to spread about the about Strategic Communication Laboratries (SLC) Cambridge Analytica.
By 12 December 2015, after contacting Facebook's public relations representatives in London, The Guardian (UK) was reporting that:
"A little-known
data company, now embedded within Cruz’s campaign and indirectly financed by
his primary billionaire benefactor, paid researchers at Cambridge University to
gather detailed psychological profiles about the US electorate using a massive
pool of mainly unwitting US Facebook users built with an online survey.
As part of an aggressive
new voter-targeting operation, Cambridge Analytica – financially supported by
reclusive hedge fund magnate and leading Republican donor Robert Mercer – is
now using so-called “psychographic profiles” of US citizens in order to help
win Cruz votes, despite earlier concerns and red flags from potential
survey-takers.
Documents seen by the
Guardian have uncovered longstanding ethical and privacy issues about the way
academics hoovered up personal data by accessing a vast set of US Facebook
profiles, in order to build sophisticated models of users’ personalities.
By 6 January 2016 The Guardian was reporting on what was likely to turn up in Facebook feeds by way of political advertising:
If you lived in
north-east Iowa, the evangelical stronghold where the battle for the soul of
conservative American politics will play out in person on Monday, and happened
to have given Senator Ted Cruz’s campaign your email address sometime in the
last few months, you might find something especially appealing this weekend in
your Facebook feed.
Even the most obtuse member of Facebook Inc.'s board or senior management would have been aware that the company was fast becoming an active participant in the US presidential primaries campaign.
The Guardian, 26 March 2018:
In rejecting the media’s
characterisation of this large-scale privacy violation as a “data breach”,
Facebook claims “everyone involved” in the 2014 data-siphoning exercise had
given their consent. “People knowingly provided their information,” the company
claimed. As with its interpretation of the word “clear”, Facebook seems to have
a skewed understanding of what “knowingly” really means.
Facebook’s senior
executives may now be feeling apologetic, “outraged” even. But in January 2016,
as Trump surged in the polls, Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, told investors the 2016 election was “a big
deal in terms of ad spend”. In other words, a major commercial opportunity. The
ability to target voters, she said, was key: “Using Facebook and Instagram
ads you can target by congressional district, you can target by interest,
you can target by demographics or any combination of those,” she boasted. “And
we’re seeing politicians at all levels really take advantage of that
targeting.”
It’s perhaps worth
remembering, then, that until recently Facebook was encouraging political
operatives to take full advantage of its garden of surveillance. And while
aspects of the Cambridge
Analytica affair may be surprising, and offer a disturbing glimpse
into the shadows, the routine exploitation of information about our lives –
about who we are – is what’s powering Facebook. It’s the behemoth’s lifeblood.
This was a statement from the U.K. Parliament House
of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 28 March
2018:
Christopher Wylie gave
evidence to the Committee on Tuesday 27th March 2018 during which he
referred to the evidence the Committee is publishing today. This session is
available to watch.
Please note the transcript will be published online shortly.
On
Tuesday 20th March, the Committee Chair Damian Collins MP wrote to Mark
Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, requesting oral evidence. Facebook have responded
offering two senior executives. The Committee has accepted evidence from Chris
Cox, Chief Product Officer, but has written today to Facebook to clarify
whether Mr. Zuckerberg will also appear himself, as requested. This
matter was also raised with The UK Prime Minister Theresa May, in her evidence
before the Liaison Committee on the evening of the 27th March. She said that
Facebook should be taking the matter seriously.
On
Thursday 22nd, the Committee wrote to Alexander Nix, the suspended CEO of
Cambridge Analytica, recalling him to Parliament to give further evidence. Mr.
Nix has agreed to come before the Committee again. You can watch the evidence
session that took place on 27th February 2018 where Mr. Nix gave evidence
on Parliamentlive.tv and
read the transcript.
Chris Wylie Background Papers - referring to the work of SCL elections, Cambridge Analytica, Global Science... by clarencegirl on Scribd
Labels:
data mining,
data retention,
elections,
Facebook,
information technology,
Internet,
privacy,
safety
Monday 26 March 2018
A brief scrutiny of the byzantium maze that is Cambridge Analytica
Attempting to make sense of a group of corporate actors who obviously delighted in establishing a veritable labyrinth of companies and to create a reference to follow any future revelations.........
So what does the British-US company Cambridge Analytica which;
(i) has been accused of rat f**king the 2015 Nigerian presidential election and the 2013 & 2017 Kenyan elections,
(ii) allegedly influenced the 2016 UK Brexit referendum vote by assisting the Leave.EU campaign,
(iii) was known to have purchased data from Global Science Research Ltd who harvested personal details from an est. 50 million Facebook user accounts and,
(iv) later sold a breakdown of user data first to a number of GOP candidates during 2014 midterms, as well as to Ted Cruz during the US primaries and then to Donald Trump during the 2016 US presidential campaign,
actually look like on paper?
This appears to be the company whose business name is included in so many media reports at the moment:
Cambridge Analytica LLC incorporated in Delaware USA on 31 December 2013 offering data mining, analysis, and behavioral communication solutions according to Bloomberg.com and, now considered a subsidiary of SCL Group Limited.
“The genesis of Cambridge Analytica was to address the vacuum in the US Republican political market that became evident after [Mitt] Romney’s defeat in 2012” [Alexander Nix, CEO Cambridge Analytics].
Executives
Alexander James Ashburner Nix Chief Executive Officer
Julian David Wheatland Chief Financial Officer
Mark Turnbull Managing Director of CA Political Global
Thomas Finkle Global Head of Client ServicesIt shares its name with a UK Company CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA (UK) LIMITED - formerly SCL USA Limited incorporated 6 January 2015.
Directors
NIX,
Alexander James Ashburner Appointed founding sole director 6 January 2015. Only shareholder - in his own name and through
another company solely owned by him, SCL Elections
Limited (incorporated
17 October 2012).
SCL Elections Limited is described by Cambridge Analylitica as "an affiliate of Cambridge Analytica" and also the "genisis" of Cambridge Analytica. It is now being blamed for receiving harvested Facebook data and Cambridge Analytica is hypocritically trying to distance itself in a company media release on 23 March 2018.
The Cambridge Analytica website states it has offices in London, New York, Washington DC, Brazil and Malaysia. Until 20 March 2018 Alexander Nix was listed as its CEO. Acting CEO is now Chief Data Scientist at SCL Group Limited Dr. Alexander Tayler.
How do two firms on opposite sides of the world - one of which has only one director/owner and no indentifiable board members - suddenly become this company with reputed influence and tentacles everywhere?
Perhaps the answer lies in the est. US$15 million in indirect funding Cambridge Analytica has allegedly received from right-wing American billionaire Robert Mercer & his daughter Rebekah through one or all five affiliated US 'front' companies including Cambridge Analytica LLC and in its relationship with another UK corporation with which it shares information/data/personnel.
The remaining US 'front' companies are:
SCL Elections Limited is described by Cambridge Analylitica as "an affiliate of Cambridge Analytica" and also the "genisis" of Cambridge Analytica. It is now being blamed for receiving harvested Facebook data and Cambridge Analytica is hypocritically trying to distance itself in a company media release on 23 March 2018.
The Cambridge Analytica website states it has offices in London, New York, Washington DC, Brazil and Malaysia. Until 20 March 2018 Alexander Nix was listed as its CEO. Acting CEO is now Chief Data Scientist at SCL Group Limited Dr. Alexander Tayler.
How do two firms on opposite sides of the world - one of which has only one director/owner and no indentifiable board members - suddenly become this company with reputed influence and tentacles everywhere?
Perhaps the answer lies in the est. US$15 million in indirect funding Cambridge Analytica has allegedly received from right-wing American billionaire Robert Mercer & his daughter Rebekah through one or all five affiliated US 'front' companies including Cambridge Analytica LLC and in its relationship with another UK corporation with which it shares information/data/personnel.
The remaining US 'front' companies are:
Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC (Delaware (US), 9 May 2014- )
Cambridge Analytica Commercial LLC (Delaware (US), 21 Jan 2015- )
Cambridge Analytica Political LLC (Delaware (US), 21 Jan 2015- )
That other UK company is SCL Group
Limited – formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories Limited incorporated on 20 July
2005 by STG Secretaries Limited on behalf of an unidentified person/s, with an opening share capital of £100,000.
Directors
NIX,
Alexander James Ashburner
Appointed co-founding director along with Alexander Waddinton Oakes on 20 July 2005, resigned on 7 December 2012 and reappointed on 28
January 2016. Shareholder. Owner of Cambridge
Analytica (UK) Limited.
OAKES,
Nigel John Appointed
on 3 October 2005. Shareholder.
GABB,
Roger Michael Appointed
on 10 November 2005. Shareholder. Ownership of shares – more than 25% but not
more than 50%. Ownership of voting rights - more than 25% but not more than 50%
Barclays
Bank PLC – current lender to the company It seems this bank assisted in restructuring SCL Group Limited's finances.
Company Positions
Identified by LinkedIn
United
Kingdom
Web / Software Developer
at Cambridge Analytica / SCL Group
Twickenham, United Kingdom
Current: Web
Developer at SCL Group
Data
Engineer presso Cambridge Analytica
London, United
Kingdom
Current: Data Engineer at Cambridge Analytica &
SCL Group
Account Director at
Cambridge Analytica
London, United Kingdom
Current: Senior
Project Manager at SCL Group
Chairman at SCL Group
Chief Executive at Hatton International
London, United Kingdom
Current: Chairman
at SCL Group
CEO, SCL Group -
Behavioural Influence
London, United Kingdom
Current: CEO
at SCL Group - Strategic Communication Laboratories
Financial Crime
Investigations & Security Intelligence
London, United Kingdom
Current: Head
- Fraud Surveillance, Corruption, Investigations at SCL Group
Head of Elections
London, United Kingdom
Current: Head
of Elections at SCL Group
Lead Data Scientist at
SCL Group
London, United Kingdom
Director of Operations
(SCL) / Consultant (BDI)
London, United Kingdom
Current: Director
of Operations (from 2011), Head of Infrastructures (2009-2011) at The SCL Group
DevOps Engineer at SCL
Group
London, United Kingdom
Current: Development
Operations Engineer at SCL Group
Senior Planning Engineer
at SCL Group
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Community manager chez
SCL Group
London, United Kingdom
Current: Community
manager at SCL Group
Financial Controller at
SCL Group
London, United Kingdom
Management Accountant at
SCL Group
London, United Kingdom
Account Coordinator at
SCL Group
United Kingdom
Paralegal
London, United Kingdom
Current: Paralegal
at SCL Group
IT Support Analyst at
SCL Group
Slough, United Kingdom
United
States
Director, Business
Development at SCL Group
Washington D.C. Metro Area
Senior Data Scientist at
SCL Group
Washington D.C. Metro Area
Canada
Technical Manager at SCL
Group
Alberta, Canada
Russia
Менеджер
по закупкам - SCL Group [purchasing manager]
Russian
Federation
Current: Менеджер
по закупкам at SCL Group
Macedonia
Head of
SCL Balkans at SCL Group
Macedonia
Germany
Project
Manager bei SCL Group
Hannover Area, Germany
Current: Project
Manager at SCL Group
Netherlands
Behavioural
& Legal Research Scientist // BDI Consultant
Breda Area, Netherlands
Australia
Project
Portfolio Manager at SCL Group Australia
Sydney, Australia
Current: Project
Portfolio Manager at SCL Group
New
Zealand
SCL
Products Manager at SCL Group
Auckland, New Zealand
Malaysia
Head, CA
Political/Commercial Southeast Asia
Putra Jaya, Malaysia
Current: Director
of SCL Southeast Asia at SCL Group
India
Research Analyst at SCL
Group
New Delhi Area, India
Director Business
Development at SCL Group
New Delhi Area, India
China
CUSTOMER SERVICE at SCL
Group
China
Open Corporates' Company Grouping for Cambridge Analytica
SCL
GROUP LIMITED (United Kingdom, 20 Jul 2005- ) directors
SCL
INSIGHT LIMITED (United Kingdom, 13 Sep 2016- ) directors
SCL
ELECTIONS LIMITED (United Kingdom, 17 Oct 2012- ) director
SCL
ANALYTICS LIMITED (United Kingdom, 23 Oct 2015- ) directors
CAMBRIDGE
ANALYTICA(UK) LIMITED (United Kingdom, 6 Jan 2015- ) director
STRATEGIC
COMMUNICATION LABORATORIES PRIVATE LIMITED (India, 16 Nov
2011- )
SCL
COMMERCIAL LIMITED (United Kingdom, 10 Jan 2014- ) director
inactive SCL
SOVEREIGN LIMITED (United Kingdom, 6 Jan 2015-28 Jun 2016) director Voluntarily dissolved June 2016
inactive BOLDNOTE
LIMITED (United Kingdom, 27 Oct 2004- 8 Jan 2013) directors Voluntarily dissolved January 2013
inactive SCL DIGITAL LIMITED (United Kingdom, 6 Jan 2015-28 Jun 2016) director Voluntarily dissolved January 2015
CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA LLC (Delaware (US), 31 Dec 2013- )
inactive branch SCL USA INC. (Virginia (US), 25 May 2016-31 Jul 2017)
SCL USA INC. (Delaware (US), 22 Apr 2014- ) details
branch SCL USA INC. (New York (US), 10 May 2016- )
branch SCL USA Inc. (District of Columbia (US), 22 Apr 2014- )
inactive Strategic
Communication Laboratories LLC (Virginia (US), 7 Mar 2011-30
Jun 2013)
STRATEGIC
COMMUNICATION LABORATORIES, INC. (Delaware (US), 23 Aug 2006-
)
CAMBRIDGE
ANALYTICA COMMERCIAL LLC (Delaware (US), 21 Jan 2015- )
CAMBRIDGE
ANALYTICA POLITICAL LLC (Delaware (US), 21 Jan 2015- )
BACKGROUND
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
23 March 2018:
Wylie, a Canadian
citizen, moved to London in 2010 and started to work in 2013 for SCL Group,
which he said conducted "information operations" around the world and
also worked in campaigns, especially in African nations.
As research director,
Wylie helped that company give birth to Cambridge Analytica as "an
American brand" that would focus on US politics with at least $US10
million from billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer. The Cambridge
Analytica office was in the posh Mayfair neighbourhood of London, and the
dozens of young workers - many of them contractors, a number of whom were from
Eastern Europe - buzzed about with Apple laptops.
At the helm, said Wylie,
was Mercer's daughter Rebekah, who was president, and conservative strategist
Steve Bannon, who was vice president. Running day-to-day operations was a
smooth-talking upper-crust Briton, Alexander Nix……
Wylie said that it was
under Nix's direction - but with the knowledge of Bannon and Rebekah Mercer -
that Cambridge Analytica began an ambitious data-gathering program that included
tapping into the Facebook profiles of 50 million users through the use of a
personality-testing app. The company did that with the help of a Russian
American psychologist at Cambridge University, Aleksandr Kogan, who also made
regular visits back to Russia, according to Wylie.
Wylie said he and others
at Cambridge Analytica were initially skeptical of the power of this tactic for
gathering data. But when the company approved $US1000 for Kogan to experiment
with his app, he produced data on 1000 people who downloaded it and roughly
160,000 of their friends - all in a matter of hours.
Cambridge Analytica next
approved $US10,000 for a second round of testing and was rewarded with nearly a
million records, including names, home towns, dates of birth, religious
affiliations, work and educational histories, and preferences, as expressed
using the popular Facebook "like" button on many social media
updates, news stories and other online posts.
They soon married that
data with voter lists and commercial data broker information and discovered
they had a remarkably precise portrait of a large swath of the American
electorate.
Kogan's app, called
"thisisyourdigitallife" and portrayed as being for research purposes,
gathered data on the 270,000 people who downloaded it and tens of millions of
their Facebook friends. It was this data and others that Wylie later worried
might have ended up in Russian hands.
"I'm not saying
that we put it on a drive and posted it to Vladimir Putin on Number 1 Red
Square," Wylie said, referring to the Russian president's official
residence. But he said that he and others affiliated with Cambridge Analytica
briefed Lukoil, a Russian oil company, on its research into American
voters.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The
Guardian, 14
May 2017:
What was not known,
until February, was the relationship between all these figures and the Leave
campaign. That was when Andy
Wigmore, Leave.EU’s communications director, revealed to this paper that
Farage was a close friend of both Bannon and Mercer. He said that the Leave
campaign was a “petri dish” for the Trump campaign. “We shared a lot of
information because what they were trying to do and what we were trying to do
had massive parallels.”
Wigmore also said that Mercer had been “happy to help” and Cambridge Analytica had given its services
to the campaign for free. It was the general secretary of Ukip, a British lawyer called Matthew Richardson, who effected Leave.eu’s introduction to Cambridge
Analytica, Wigmore said. “We had a guy called Matthew Richardson who’d known Nigel for a long time and he’s always looked after the Mercers. The Mercers hadsaid that here’s this company that we think might be useful.”
He said that Mercer,
Farage and co had all met at a conference in Washington. “The best dinner we
ever went to. Around that table were all the rejects of the political world.
And the rejects of the political world are now effectively in the White House.
It’s extraordinary. Jeff Sessions. [Former national security adviser Michael]
Flynn, the whole lot of them. They were all there.”
When the Observer revealed
Mercer’s “help” in February, a “gift” of services, it triggered two
investigations. One by the Information
Commissioner’s Office about possible illegal use of data. And another
by the Electoral Commission. Cambridge Analytica is a US company and Mercer
is a US citizen and British law, designed to protect its electoral system from
outside influence, expressly forbids donations from foreign – or impermissible
– donors. The commission is also looking into the “help” that Gunster gave the
campaign. It was not declared in Leave.EU’s spending returns and if donated, it
would also be impermissible. Gavin Millar QC, an expert in electoral law, says
it raises questions of the utmost importance about the influence of an American
citizen in a UK election.
But the contents of this
document raise even more significant and urgent questions. Coordination between
campaigns destroys the “level playing field” on which UK electoral law is
based. It creates an unfair advantage.
Millar said that one of
the significant and revealing aspects of the arrangement was that it was
hidden. “It’s the covert nature of the relationship between these two companies
and campaigns that I find particularly revealing and alarming. If there is covert
cooperation via offshore entities, [it] is about as serious a breach of the
funding rules as one can imagine in the 21st century.”
Millar said that this
case was without precedent. “To have a billionaire so directly buying influence
in a British election is absolutely unheard of. This is completely out of the
ordinary. And what’s clear is that our electoral laws are hopelessly
inadequate. The only way we would be able to find the truth of what happened is
through a public inquiry.”
The link between Cambridge
Analytica and AggregateIQ was never supposed to come to light. And it is still
uncertain how Vote Leave came to work with AggregateIQ.
There are several major
Tory donors and pro-Brexit figures associated with Cambridge Analytica and SCL
Elections, including Lord Marland, former treasurer of the Conservative party
and head of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council. The pro-Brexit
Tory donor Roger Gabb, the owner of South African wine company Kumala, is also
a shareholder and was involved in one of the Leave campaigns. In
a separate incident he was fined £1,000 by the Electoral Commission
for failing to include “imprints” – or campaign branding – on newspaper ads.
The Observer revealed
last week that two core members of the Vote Leave team used to work with both
Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ. Cummings said that he found the company –
on which he spent by far the biggest chunk of his campaign budget – “on the
internet”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Committee, Oral
evidence: Fake News, HC 363, Tuesday 27 February 2018, Ordered
by the House of Commons to be published on 27 February 2018.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cambridge Analytica is currently under investigation in the UK with the Information Commissioner's Office entering the company's London office under search warrant on 23 March 2018.
Labels:
big data,
data mining,
data retention,
elections,
ethics,
Facebook,
politics
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