‘Unprecedented’ international cooperation in data scandal investigation: Angus

OTTAWA — The House of Commons ethics committee spoke to a British MP on Thursday, to compare notes of investigative findings relating to an ongoing data scandal involving SCL Group Ltd.’s Cambridge Analytica and the Canadian AggregateIQ Data Services Inc. “I mean, we are really in an unprecedented situation,” said NDP MP Charlie Angus in a scrum with reporters. “In all my parliamentary career, I've never, ever seen any instance where we would be reaching out and helping gather evidence for another jurisdiction.” The committee heard testimony by U.K. Conservative Party MP Damian Collins, who chairs the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee and is also looking into the actions of Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ. He answered questions about what the British committee had learned. “When you have companies and operations from different countries that are breaking the laws around the world… it's incredibly important for parliamentary committees to cooperate and for privacy and information commissioners in different countries to cooperate in their investigations,” said Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith in a scrum after the meeting. AggregateIQ and Cambridge Analytica have been wrapped up in scandal over allegedly influencing electoral decisions around the world by exploiting personal data — some of which was collected from Facebook. “We are dealing with international players who see themselves above domestic law,” said Angus. “So we are going to have to start to coordinate a lot more because the fundamental issue is about the integrity of our democratic system.” Collins told the committee he expected the U.K.’s investigation into the use of data to sway democratic processes to conclude in July. On the Canadian side, there are also open investigations in the companies by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C (OIPC). The meeting occurred a day after Cambridge Analytica stopped operating because of negative press coverage, according to a statement it released on Wednesday. Cybersecurity group UpGuard Inc. submitted a note to the committee recommending an order for the preservation of information stored on online servers from Amazon.com Inc. and elsewhere related to Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ. Committee members and Collins agreed. As previously reported by The Wire Report, AggregateIQ has been accused of facilitating a coordinated effort on the Leave side of Brexit referendum, contrary to U.K. election law. Its leaders denied any inappropriate involvement and provided testimony which disagreed with many of the whistleblowers’ claims. Collins agreed with Canadian MPs assertion that AggregateIQ’s testimony “was not forthcoming,” according to Erskine-Smith. This isn’t the first time Collins interacted with the ethics committee. He reached out to Erskine-Smith via text message during the proceedings when the heads of AggregateIQ appeared, contradicting some of their testimony.

‘Unprecedented’ international cooperation in data scandal investigation: Angus

Brief | May 3, 2018

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‘Unprecedented’ international cooperation in data scandal investigation: Angus

Brief | May 3, 2018

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