Britanny Kaiser, the former Cambridge Analytica Director of Programme Develpment, gave evidence to the DCMS Select Committee yesterday in their investigation into fake news. You can watch the entire session HERE. Her prepared written statement is HERE. They are both worth spending a bit of time on.
Each time you lift up a stone connected with the Leave campaign you find something slimy and horrible under it - and I'm not talking about Miss Kaiser who, it seemed to me, was a credible and thoughtful witness. I believe everything she said.
We have had the Vote Leave overspend allegations and the possible misuse of data by Aggregate IQ who provided their digital and social media campaign. Now we hear of unreported spending by Leave.EU and possible criminal offences being committed by their staff. Miss Kaiser says:
"In hindsight, I now think that there is reason to believe that misuse of data was rife amongst the businesses and campaigns of Arron Banks. If the personal data of UK citizens who just wanted to buy car insurance was used by GoSkippy and Eldon Insurance for political purposes, as may have been the case, people clearly did not opt in for their data to be used in this way by Leave.EU. I have similar concerns about whether UKIP members consented to the use of their data".
"...[Big Data Dolphins - a company Banks set up in the US] has reportedly worked with a data science team at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss). If the Mississippi team has held or processed UK citizens’ data in the US, I believe that is likely to be a criminal offence; although it is for the empowered authorities to pursue any such question and secure the associated evidence".
We knew about the lies, we knew about the misinformation. We were then told about possible overspending by Vote Leave during the campaign (HERE). Now we learn there are serious allegations of wrong doing, potential breaches of the Data Protection laws and the use of psychographic micro targetting using programmes that apparently required government export licensing up to 2015.
There is a big story to be told here. With all the lies and potential misuse of data and funds the Leave campaign only managed to scrape a tiny 1.9% majority which now seems to have evaporated (HERE) anyway - but on we go to the cliff edge where we will all be poorer and less secure with a risk of the United Kingdom itself breaking apart. It really is lunacy. If we go over we will only have ourselves to blame.
