New Delhi: The recent scandal relating to the data analysis company Cambridge Analytica seems to have more interesting details than we have perceived. The company was recently accused of huge data breach and had worked for many political parties in India. The company provided India’s ‘national parties and the Janata Dal United with caste analysis. These details were tweeted by the whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who brought to the public the scandal due to the misuse of Facebook user account data with the aim of manipulating elections. Wylie is former co-founder and an ex-employee of the company, Cambridge Analytica and is the main person who exposed the details. While speaking to British lawmakers yesterday, he said that the Congress was also a client of Cambridge Analytica.
Given below are the most important 10 updates which is related with Cambridge Analytica’s links with India:
Christopher Wylie said on his twitter handle: “I’ve been getting a lot of requests from Indian journalists, so here are some of SCL’s (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica) past projects in India. To the most frequently asked question – yes SCL/CA works in India and has offices there. This is what modern colonialism looks like.”
He posted a document, which reveals that since the year of 2003, the data analytics firm which got caught after exposure for accessing user data of Facebook illegally has served several parties. The only party it listed by name is Janata Dal United.
Uttar Pradhes State – 2012: The documents gives details into the year 2012 when SCL carried out a state-wide caste census in Uttar Pradesh for a national party. “The research included analysis of caste structure and dynamics within the state leading to conclusions regarding the identification of the party’s core voters as well as likely swing voters,” it says. In 2011, the company worked on identifying voter caste by every household.
National Elections – 2009: The company was responsible for managing a number of campaigns of “a number of Lok Sabha candidates”, says the document.
Bihar Election – 2010: “SCL India was asked to provide electoral research and strategy for the 2010 state elections for the Janata Dal (United)”. It further says that the firm helped its client in identifying “the right audiences, messages and most importantly the right castes to target with their campaigns.”
Uttar Pradesh – 2007: The Company was responsible for a “full political survey on behalf of a major party”.
Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, UP – 2007 : SCL was tasked to take up a campaign that “focused on ancillary populations as opposed to perpetrators of violent jihadism themselves and required in-depth motivational understanding of the population of six states.”
Madhya Pradesh election – 2003: The document gives details into how the company worked for a national party to identify swing voters. It was responsible for analyzing “behavioural dynamics in key seats so the party could appeal to the caste make-up and attitudinal positions of the swing population”.
Rajasthan election – 2003 : “A major state party contracted SCL India to carry out two major pieces of work, one internal and aimed at assessing the party’s organizational strength and the other external and looking at the nature of the voting population and the attitudes and behaviours of politically-active individuals within the state.”
Yesterday, Wylie, aged 28, told in front of a British parliamentary committee: “They (Cambridge Analytica) worked extensively in India. They have an office in India. I believe their client was Congress. But I know that they have done all kind of projects. I don’t remember any national project, but regionally… India is so big that one state can be the size of Britain.”
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