Whistleblower hints at CA links with Congress

They ( Cambridge Analytica) worked extensively in India… I believe their client was Congress — Christopher Wylie

Hours after Christopher Wylie, the whistle- blower who lifted the lid on political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of Facebook data, told the UK’s House of Commons that he believed the Congress Party was the company’s client in India, the BJP on Tuesday demanded an apology from Rahul Gandhi.

“They ( Cambridge Analytica) worked extensively in India… I believe their client was Congress,” Mr Wylie said.

Citing Mr Wylie’s deposition, the BJP said Mr Gandhi stood “exposed”.

“The whistleblower has publicly confirmed that the Congress was indeed their client... The Congress and Rahul Gandhi must apologise to the nation,” Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

However, in a deposition alongside Mr Wylie, Paul- Olivier Dehaye, cofounder of PersonalData. IO, added a twist to tale when he told the committee that he had heard reports that Dan Muresan, head of elections at SCL Group ( Cambridge Analytica’s parent firm), was being paid by an Indian

billionaire who wanted the Congress to lose elections.

“So he was pretending to work for one party but actually paid underhand by someone else ( sic),” Mr Dehaye said.

Mr Dehaye, who runs PersonalData. IO, a service that helps individuals regain control over their personal data, was tracking Cambridge Analytica last year and has released a dossier on them and their parent company, SCL Group.

Strategic Communications Laboratories ( SCL) is Cambridge Analytica’s parent firm. “SCL India is a venture between Oveleno Business Intelligence, India, and SCL Group, London,” states the website of OBI, the Indian partner Cambridge Analytica.

Mr Wylie and Mr Dehaye deposed before the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee ( DCMS) in London amid an escalating row around alleged Facebook data breaches linked with the controversial UK- based company, which has also been linked with alleged attempts to influence elections in India.

The BJP and the Congress have been engaged in a war of words over Cambridge Analytica’s alleged data of theft.

“When you look at Facebook’s biggest market, India is the top in terms of numbers of users. Obviously, that’s a country which is rife with political discord and opportunities for destabilisation,” said Labour MP Paul Farrelly, member of the parliamentary committee, during his questioning.

“They ( Cambridge Analytica) worked extensively in India. They have an office in India,” Mr Wylie responded.

“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. India’s so big that one state can be as big as Britain. But they do have offices there, they do have staff there,” the 28- year- old added on being probed further.

He offered to provide the committee “documentation” on India, which was welcomed by Mr Farrelly, who said India was a country that did not need any added “tensions”.

During his evidence, Mr Wylie also said that his predecessor, Dan Muresan, head of elections at SCL Group, was working in India before he died in Kenya under mysterious circumstances. He claimed to have heard stories that Muresan, a Romanian national, may have been poisoned in a hotel room while in the African country.

Mr Dehaye said that it would be for Indian and Kenyan journalists to get together to investigate the matter.

Reacting only to Mr Wylie’s deposition, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union IT and law minister, said, “Cambridge Analytica is in the dock for data theft and trying to manipulate voters using unlawful means. Congress Party needs to apologise to the nation for data theft and trying to manipulate voters. Rahul Gandhi needs to apologise to the nation for trying to subvert India’s election process using the Brahmastra of Cambridge Analytica.”

He dismissed the Congress’ allegation that the BJP had used the firm’s services, calling it a “pack of lies”.

Mr Wylie has accused his former employer, Cambridge Analytica, of gathering the details of 50 million users on Facebook through a personality quiz in 2014. He alleges that because 270,000 people took the quiz, the data of some 50 million users, mainly in the US, was harvested without their explicit consent via their friend networks.

Mr Wylie claims the data was sold to Cambridge Analytica, which then used it to psychologically profile people and deliver material in favour of Donald Trump during the 2016 US presidential elections.

He also criticised Cambridge Analytica for running campaigns in “struggling democracies”, which he called “an example of what modern- day colonialism looks like”.

“You have a wealthy company from a developed nation going into an economy or democracy that’s still struggling to get its feet on the ground — and taking advantage of that to profit from that,” he told MPs.

Cambridge Analytica denies any of the data acquired was used as part of the services it provided to the Trump campaign.

In an undercover report last week, Cambridge Analytica executives had been caught boasting that they, along with parent company SCL, had worked in more than 200 elections around the world, including India, Nigeria, Kenya, the Czech Republic and Argentina.

The recordings were made during a series of meetings at London hotels between November 2017 and January 2018.