Brexit:Trump - Watchdog to launch inquiry into misuse of data in politics

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Brexit:Trump - Watchdog to launch inquiry into misuse of data in politics

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Cambridge Analytica to be investigated by UK and US watchdogs over voting irregularities.
Couldn't find the original thread. Feel free to move it.
I remember posting their promo movie on here or tof recently. Apparently that video has been pulled by the company now. In it he was bragging about how they collected data from popular social media sites including Facebook, and using that data to bring Ted Cruise up from something like 3% popularity to around 30% over a few months. Completely different to what they say below.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... exit-trump

Investigation follows revelations of digital firm’s involvement in Brexit

Jamie Doward, Carole Cadwalladr and Alice Gibbs
Saturday 4 March 2017 22.29 GMT Last modified on Sunday 5 March 2017 01.19 GMT
The UK’s privacy watchdog is launching an inquiry into how voters’ personal data is being captured and exploited in political campaigns, cited as a key factor in both the Brexit and Trump victories last year.

The intervention by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) follows revelations in last week’s Observer that a technology company part-owned by a US billionaire played a key role in the campaign to persuade Britons to vote to leave the European Union.

Analysis Did Cambridge Analytica influence the Brexit vote and the US election?
Nigel Oakes’s company is at the centre of a growing controversy over the use of personal data during elections. But is there any evidence that what it does works?
It comes as privacy campaigners, lawyers, politicians and technology experts express fears that electoral laws are not keeping up with the pace of technological change.

“We are conducting a wide assessment of the data-protection risks arising from the use of data analytics, including for political purposes, and will be contacting a range of organisations,” an ICO spokeswoman confirmed. “We intend to publicise our findings later this year.”

The ICO spokeswoman confirmed that it had approached Cambridge Analytica over its apparent use of data following the story in the Observer. “We have concerns about Cambridge Analytica’s reported use of personal data and we are in contact with the organisation,” she said.

The company, which has offices in London, New York and Washington, uses data analysis to build up sophisticated profiles of individuals to predict how they might vote. Reportedly part-owned by US billionaire Robert Mercer, it claims to have played an influential role in the US election, using its data-crunching ability to identify key swing voters.

Mercer is a friend of former Ukip leader Nigel Farage. Last week, Andy Wigmore, the communications director of the pro-Brexit campaign group, Leave.EU, told the Observer they had been introduced to the company by the Mercer family.

“They were happy to help,” he said. “Because Nigel is a good friend of the Mercers. And Mercer introduced them to us. He said, ‘Here’s this company we think may be useful to you’. What they were trying to do in the US and what we were trying to do had massive parallels. We shared a lot of information.”

In February 2016, the company’s chief executive, Alexander Nix, talked about how it had helped to “supercharge Leave.EU’s social media campaign by ensuring the right messages are getting to the right voters online”.


A spokesman for Cambridge Analytica denied it had played any role – either paid or unpaid – during the referendum campaign, something that would have to be declared to the Electoral Commission. But Green MP Caroline Lucas, who campaigned for Remain, said: “Clearly, there are questions to be answered about the Leave campaign’s use of big data and a potentially huge ‘in kind’ donation by Cambridge Analytica. To have a foreign billionaire’s fingerprints left all over such a seismic moment in British history is deeply concerning and requires urgent further investigation as to whether electoral law was broken.”

A 2015 presentation by one of Cambridge Analytica’s analysts, until recently available on YouTube, explained how it had used “Facebook likes … as an input to machine-learning models.”

In the US, companies are free to use third-party data without seeking consent. But Gavin Millar QC, of Matrix Chambers, said this was not the case in Europe. “The position in law is exactly the same as when people would go canvassing from door to door,” Millar said. “They have to say who they are, and if you don’t want to talk to them you can shut the door in their face.That’s the same principle behind the data protection act. It’s why if telephone canvassers ring you, they have to say that whole long speech. You have to identify yourself explicitly.”

The Cambridge Analytica spokesman said: “We do not use data from Facebook. We do not have access to Facebook likes … What you have sent us relates to a research project done in 2015 with an intern data scientist using an anonymous data set. The goal was to reproduce findings in the peer-reviewed literature … Its application for us is limited by the fact that we don’t have Facebook likes covering the population (only Facebook has those data).”

A Facebook spokesperson said: “Our investigation to date has not uncovered anything that suggests wrongdoing with respect to Cambridge Analytica’s work on the Leave and Trump campaigns.”
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Re: Brexit:Trump - Watchdog to launch inquiry into misuse of data in politics

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Nobody likes Ted Cruz anyhow.
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Re: Brexit:Trump - Watchdog to launch inquiry into misuse of data in politics

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cptrelentless wrote: Mon Mar 06, 2017 9:56 pm Nobody likes Ted Cruz anyhow.
I think the point is that they started liking him after Cambridge Analytica became involved. Kinda shows they can take an unpopular guy and make him popular, just by agreeing with what your point of view on things is. I guess it's a bit like those people who repeat what you say, so as make you think they agree with you. Although it does depend on who's delivering the message, the ego is a powerful force. And by the way, I think the posters on here are far better than on the other forum.
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Re: Brexit:Trump - Watchdog to launch inquiry into misuse of data in politics

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juansweetpotato wrote: Mon Mar 06, 2017 11:17 pm
cptrelentless wrote: Mon Mar 06, 2017 9:56 pm Nobody likes Ted Cruz anyhow.
I think the point is that they started liking him after Cambridge Analytica became involved. Kinda shows they can take an unpopular guy and make him popular, just by agreeing with what your point of view on things is. I guess it's a bit like those people who repeat what you say, so as make you think they agree with you. Although it does depend on who's delivering the message, the ego is a powerful force. And by the way, I think the posters on here are far better than on the other forum.
TOF is like pissing into an ocean of piss. I like being superior to someone on the internet.
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