OBI IS PULLING OUT OF CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA

Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI), an Indian firm headed by Janata Dal(U) leader K C Tyagi’s son Amrish, on Thursday said it was “looking to end association” with Cambridge Analytica, saying “we are equally shocked and surprised to see the data breach controversy.”

“We are not denying our association with (London-based) Cambridge Analytica, but we did not undertake any project with it related to social media, especially Facebook,” OBI vicepresident Himanshu Sharma said in an email statement, clarifying that neither whistle blower nor Facebook has confirmeds any kind of data breach in India.

It said: “We completely believe in ethics and legal system of India . ... we are a ground research company closely working with various media houses and not undertaken any project with CA related to social media .... CA has already suspended Alexander Nix who is under fire in all this controversy but we are not authorised to speak on behalf of them so for any query contact nick.fievet@cambridgea nalytica.org.”

Sharma’s attempt to assert that his firm worked only for various media houses is, however, belied from his Linkdin profile that says: “Managed four election campaigns successfully for the ruling BJP. Achieved target of 272+ by managing call center management project profiling each and every volunteer supporter .... Data base provided constituency wise to BJP candidates as an additional support for national elections and state polls of Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi.”