Philippines’ leader did not buy data to win election — Spokesman

MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's election victory in 2016 did not rely on information bought from anybody and his campaign team did not hire political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

The Britain-based Cambridge Analytica is at the centre of a controversy over harvested personal data about users of Facebook, which was used to target voters in the US presidential election and Britain's 2016 referendum on European Union membership.

A report last week in the South China Morning Post newspaper said that Cambridge Analytica's parent firm, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), had made the claim that it helped put Duterte in office.

But presidential spokesman Harry Roque said that was far from the case and Duterte's win was ‘fair and square'.

He said his then campaign treasurer and current finance minister, Carlos Dominguez, had assured him no transactions had taken place with Cambridge Analytica. Duterte's victory should not be undermined with ' unsubstantiated allegations', Roque said in a statement.

British legislators have questioned Alexander Nix, the suspended Cambridge Analytica chief executive, over his role in harvesting data from millions of Facebook users.

Outside the United States, the largest amount of user data acquired by Cambridge Analytica was from the Philippines.

The country's National Privacy Commission, citing information it was given by Facebook, said it had data from 1.17 million Filipino accounts. — Reuters