Now, whistleblower says Cambridge Analytica worked with JD(U) in 2010
NEW DELHI: Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie on Wednesday claimed that JD(U) had availed the services of the data mining firm's parent company SCL'S services in 2010. On Tuesday, he had told a UK parliamentary committee, Cambridge Analytica had been employed by the Indian National Congress.
He wrote on Twitter: “I've been getting a lot of requests from Indian journalists, so here are some of SCL'S 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.”
While the slides don't mention any other party, they do explicitly name Nitish Kumar's JD(U) as a client in 2010.
The tweet read: “SCL India was asked to provide electoral research and strategy for the 2010 State Elections for the Janata Dal (United). SCL undertook a behavioural research programme targeting over 75% of households to assist the client in not only identifying the correct battlegrounds, but also the right audiences, messages and most importantly the right castes to target their campaigns'.
The slides claim among other things:
- SCL has a database of over 600 districts and 7 lakh villages, which is constantly updated.
- It carried out a caste census in Uttar Pradesh on behalf of a national party in 2012.
- SCL India undertook a statewide (200 million) in 2011 in UP to identify voter caste by household.
- In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, it managed the campaigns of several MPS.
- In 2007, SCL carried out a full political survey on behalf of a major party.
- In 2007, they carried out a project, to support a 'transnational programme for countering the non-desired behaviour of recruitment into violent jihadism. It was carried out in Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and UP.
- In 2003, they carried out a psephological study and opinion polling for national party to identify swing voters in MP for a national party.
- In 2003, they carried out two pieces of work, an internal audit for a major party to assess its organisational strength, and one to find another to find the nature of the voting population.
Earlier on Tuesday, Wylie escalated the row over alleged harvesting of Facebook profiles to influence elections by saying that he believed the Congress party was a client of Cambridge Analytica, and he was aware that the firm, with many employees and offices, had worked extensively in India.
In his testimony to the British Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee, Wylie, on being asked about Cambridge Analytica's work in India, said: “I believe their client was Congress. But I know that they have done all kinds of projects. I don't remember a national project, but I know regionally. I mean India is so big that you know that one state can be, you know, as big as Britain. But they do have offices there, they do have staff there. I believe I have some documentation on India, which I can also provide to the committee if that's something of interest.”