‘Tiny little’ Victoria company had claimed ‘global influence’
Just a week ago, AggregateIQ , the small software developer in Victoria, B.C., named in whistleblower Christopher Wylie’s testimony before U.K. lawmakers Tuesday, was touting its role in the Brexit vote.
Until it was apparently taken down this week, the company’s website featured a glowing review from Vote Leave campaign director Dominic Cummings. “We couldn’t have done it without them,” it read.
The company received the equivalent of $ 5.7 million from the Vote Leave campaign, more money than any firm working for either side during the Brexit referendum campaign. Much of this war chest was then directed toward what was described as “optimized” ads targeting potential voters.
“This particular client was pretty happy with the outcome ,” company cofounder Jeff Silvester told Postmedia in 2017. “It’s a bit humbling really to think that we’ve had an influence on history. Can you imagine, this tiny little company in Victoria having a global influence?”
AggregateIQ is headquartered in a building adjoining Victoria’s Market Square, a shopping plaza in the historic heart of the B.C. capital. According to Linked In profiles, it has about half a dozen employees.
Both Silvester and cofounder Zack Massingham have background sin politics. Massingham previ- ously worked for B.C. politician Mike de Jong during his 2011 run for B.C. Liberal leader. Silvester was an executive assistant to Keith Martin, a Victoria- area Liberal MP who has the unique distinction of representing four different federal parties during his career as an MP.
AggregateIQ has maintained that it doesn’t pick sides and will take on any client. “We have worked in Europe, North America, South America, and Africa — across the political spectrum,” Massingham told Victoria’s Times Colonist earlier this month.
On Tuesday Wylie told the media committee of the British parliament that he “absolutely” believed AggregateIQ drew on Cambridge Analytica’s databases for its work on the Vote Leave campaign.
“There’s now t angible proof in the public domain that ( AggregateIQ) actually built Ripon, which is the software that utilized the algorithms from the Facebook data,” Wylie said.
Ripon, named f or t he Wisconsin city in which the Republican Party was founded in 1854, is microtargeting software designed to allow political campaigns to man- age and track potential voters.
This week, t he cybersecurity firm UpGuard was able to access a code repository that seemed to confirm AggregateIQ created Ripon.
Cambridge Analytica is under scrutiny for allegedly obtaining personalized Facebook data without users’ consent and then feeding it into Ripon for use during the 2016 presidential run of Donald Trump.
In comments published in the Observer newspaper over the weekend, Wylie also claimed to be a central player in AggregateIQ’s creation.
Silvester has acknowledged knowing Wylie through federal Liberal party channels, according to the Times Colonist. But a weekend statement on AggregateIQ’s website denied any professional links to Wylie or Cambridge Analytica.
“It is and has always been 100 per cent Canadian owned and operated. AggregateIQ has never been and is not a part of Cambridge Analytica or (its parent company) SCL. Aggregate IQ has never entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica. Chris Wylie has never been employed by AggregateIQ.”
The statement added that the company “has never knowingly been involved in any illegal activity.”
In an interview last week with CBC, the B.C. Information and Privacy Commission confirmed that the company is under investigation. “We are asking, whether AggregateIQ was involved in any of the British Columbia election activity,” said acting commissioner Drew McArthur.
WE COULDN’T HAVE (WON THE BREXIT VOTE) WITHOUT THEM.