British firm Cambridge Analytica is not under the scanner only in the UK and the US for its alleged misuse of millions of Facebook users’ personal data to manipulate the 2016 US elections in favor of its client Donald Trump.
An affiliate of British firm Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL-UK), the data analytics firm is now at the center of an escalating global scandal and facing backlash in India, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico and Malaysia over allegations of influencing several elections in these countries since 2010.
With over 250 million users, India is home to Facebook’s largest user base while Brazil is the social media giant’s third largest market with about 130 million users.
Regulators and lawmaker in these countries have now joined their counterparts in the US and Europe to seek an explanation of how Cambridge Analytica gained access to data on 50 million Facebook users in order to build voter profiles.
Cambridge Analytica has suspended its chief executive Alexander Nix ever since reports earlier this week suggested that the firm may have improperly gained access to the data, while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his company made mistakes and must step up its handling of user data.
Massive political row in India
A screenshot of a tweet from India’s Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on March 22. 2018.
In India, reports that Cambridge Analytica may have offered services to major political parties have triggered a massive political row. Media reports cited a whistleblower and top officials from Cambridge Analytica’s Indian partner Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI) to suggest that the consultancy firm used data analytics to influence several elections since 2010.
The BBC reported that according to SCL-India, which is owned by SCL-UK and OBI, India’s two major political parties – the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main opposition Congress – are clients of the firm. While both the political parties denied their own links with SCL-India, they accused the other of employing the services of the firm.
As the controversy led to a bickering political fight, the website of OBI was suspended on Wednesday.
Whistleblower Avneesh Rai, the co-founder and director of SCL-India, told NDTV news channel that SCL-UK CEO Alexander Nix may have plotted to defeat the Congress party ahead of India's 2014 parliamentary elections.
A screenshot of a tweet from leader of India's main opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, on March 22. 2018.
According to reports, both Rai and OBI head Amrish Tyagi started working with Nix’s company around 2010, much before Cambridge Analytica was created in 2013 to target American politics. Soon, Tyagi was included in Cambridge Analytica’s elite group that processed big data for the firm’s main client in the US – Trump’s campaign team. They operated out of Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of the Indian capital city of New Delhi.
Tyagi is the son of politician K C Tyagi of the Janata Dal United party, which was also listed among the firm’s Indian client list.
Meanwhile, India’s Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad warned on Wednesday against any abuse of social media in elections.
"Abuse of social media including Facebook cannot be allowed to impact the fairness of elections," Prasad asserted.
"In the wake of recent data theft from Facebook, let my stern warning be heard across the Atlantic, far away in California. Any covert or overt attempt to misuse social media including Facebook to influence India's electoral process through undesirable means will neither be tolerated, nor be permitted."
India is due to hold its national election in 2019 and many states will elect new assemblies this year as well. Indian media reported earlier this week that Cambridge Analytica is in talks with the Congress party for 2019 polls.
It’s anyone’s guess where those talks would head to.
Kenya election under scanner
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta gives an address at the official opening of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-3) at the UN headquarters on December 5, 2017, in Nairobi. /VCG Photo
In Kenya, ruling Jubilee Party on Wednesday denied that Cambridge Analytica had stage-managed the victory of President Uhuru Kenyatta in highly disputed and deadly 2017 elections, AFP reported. The British firm reportedly worked on Kenyatta’s campaign last year and in 2013.
The controversy erupted in the eastern African country after UK’s Channel 4 aired an expose that showed hidden camera footage of Cambridge Analytica managing director Mark Turnbull boasting about the firm’s role in Kenya’s elections.
"[In] the campaign which we ran in 2013 and 2017 for Kenyatta, we have rebranded the entire party twice, written their manifesto, done two rounds of 50,000 surveys... research, analysis, messaging, then we'd write all the speeches and we'd stage the whole thing; so just about every element of his campaign," Turnbull was shown as saying.
Denying the British firm’s role, Jubilee vice-chairman David Murathe argued that the party had never engaged directly with Cambridge Analytica, but only with its affiliate SCL Elections, which is also managed by Turnbull.
"We engaged the services of several marketing companies. All they (SCL) did for us was branding; billboards, T-shirts and the like. They had no involvement in our social media campaign,” Murathe said, adding: “There’s nothing here.”
Kenya’s 2017 presidential election was marred by controversy, with the first poll annulled by the courts and the re-election boycotted by the opposition, which accused Kenyatta of stealing the victory of their candidate Raila Odinga.
The head of Odinga's National Super Alliance (NASA) secretariat Norman Magaya on Wednesday said the recent scandal confirmed that Jubilee employed underhanded tactics to steal victory in both elections, using the services of Cambridge Analytica.
Magaya said NASA had constituted a legal team of five people to work together with IT experts to determine the extent of influence the British firm might have incurred on the elections and explore legal actions.
Fallout in Mexico, Brazil and Malaysia
A laptop showing the Facebook logo is held alongside a Cambridge Analytica sign at the entrance to the building housing the offices of the British data analytics firm, in central London, on March 21, 2018. /VCG Photo
Speculation about Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in Brazil, Mexico and Malaysia emerged after one of the company’s senior executives was secretly recorded by Channel 4 as saying that it had used a web of shell companies to disguise campaigning activities in the three countries.
Brazil launched an investigation on Wednesday into whether Cambridge Analytica acted illegally in the Latin American country.
Prosecutors for Brazil’s Federal District, which includes Brasilia, the capital, said in a written statement that they will look into whether the firm, through its partnership with Sao Paulo-based consulting group Ponte Estrategia, illegally used the data of millions of Brazilians to create psychographic profiles, Reuters reported.
Prosecutors from a specialized data unit will look into whether there were security breaches that allowed the firm to illegally access personal data.
Ponte Estrategia, meanwhile, has asked to suspend its agreement with Cambridge Analytica less than seven months before Brazil goes to the polls, Bloomberg reported.
In Mexico on Wednesday, a Latin American mobile app that Cambridge Analytica had hoped to use to mine data for presidential campaigns severed ties with the embattled firm, according to Bloomberg.
Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak attends the 19th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Republic of Korea Summit on the sidelines of the 31st ASEAN Summit in Manila, Philippines, on November 13, 2017. /VCG Photo
Pig.gi, which gives 1.2 million users in Mexico and Colombia free airtime and data in exchange for watching ads and taking surveys, said it has never worked on a political campaign with Cambridge. The startup did share results on two election polls and occasional aggregated data on non-political preferences, but said it does so with other partners as well.
Earlier on Tuesday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak denied reports that his government had ever engaged with the tainted data analytics firm. Razak however accused his rival Mahathir Mohamad’s son Mukhriz of using the services of Cambridge Analytica.
"Contrary to media reports, neither Cambridge Analytica nor its parent company SCL Group have ever – now or in the past – been contracted, employed or paid in any way by Barisan Nasional, the Prime Minister’s Office or any part of the Government of Malaysia," Razak’s office said in a statement.
Mukhriz Mohamad, on the other hand, denied having any knowledge of Cambridge Analytica, calling the PMO statement "misleading."
According to political observers, Razak is likely to dissolve parliament within weeks to trigger a general election that will pit him against Mahathir Mohamad.
(With input from agencies)
[Cover Photo: A protester sticks posters of suspended Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix behind bars onto the windows of the offices in a demonstration against the British data analytics firm on March 20, 2018, in London, England. /VCG Photo]
