The BJP and the Congress have been fighting each other ever since Cambridge Analytica’s work in India started getting reported. A new round of this war of words took place on Tuesday after Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower behind the latest round of revelations, told a British parliamentary panel that he believed Congress was one of the clients of the firm. Paul-Olivier Dehay, the co-founder of Personal Data.IO, another individual who spoke to the panel, told it on the other hand that the firm might have worked against the Congress too.
The reason why CA has been in the news recently is because it was able to exploit Facebook for big data, which it subsequently used for election management. However, documents shared by Wylie on Wednesday on Twitter or an insider report published Tuesday on the company’s work in India, do not indicate any data breach, as both the BJP and Congress have been alleging.
Despite this, these new revelations show the role data has played in election management in India. Moreover, CA’s involvement in Indian election is a cause of concern because of the company’s shady dealings abroad.
So What Exactly Did Cambridge Analytica Do In India?
The insider report published by The Print details the early years of an Indian company of CA’s parent firm SCL Group. It is this Indian company, Strategic Communications Laboratories Private Limited, which worked on elections in India.
According to The Print report, SCL devised a survey-questionnaire for understanding voters better. That wouldn’t be surprising or improper, except the questionnaire was designed to make a voter dislike the Congress. “Our services help clients to identify and target key groups within the population to effectively influence their behaviour to realise a desired outcome,” the documents shared by Wylie also say.
The Print report doesn’t say which party finally engaged SCL, but only says that an Indian-American businessman, who wanted the Congress to lose, was a client for some time before opting out. Interestingly, the firm was simultaneously trying to earn a contract with the Congress.
Who Are The People Behind This Company?
SCL has four directors in India. It is the connections of these people that is making people speculate their role in Indian elections. Among these four directors are also the co-founders of SCL Group, which owns Cambridge Analytica, the firm that acquired and exploited Facebook data for the Trump campaign.
A possible cause of concern can also be that the answers of the survey, which was completed at least in Amethi and Rae Bareli, were collected through an app. This app was supposed to share data with servers in the US against the wishes of one of the Indian directors of the company, Avneesh Rai. The documents released by Wylie on Wednesday say that “SCL India has a database of over 600 districts and 7 lakh village, which is constantly being updated”.
Are There Other Parties Involved?
The documents shared by Wylie say that SCL India “was asked to provide electoral research and strategy for the 2010 State Elections for the Janata Dal (United)”. The company assisted the party through a behavioural research programme for over 75 percent of households. Amrish Tyagi, whose Ovleno Business Intelligence is a subsidiary of SCL India by his own admission, is also the son of JD(U) leader K C Tyagi.
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. pic.twitter.com/v8tOmcmy3z
— Christopher Wylie (@chrisinsilico) March 28, 2018
The documents also claim that SCL worked on the 2003 Assembly elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the 2007 election in Uttar Pradesh, the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, and in a caste census in Uttar Pradesh in 2011 and 2012.
According to the story Rai knew as a director of SCL India, however, these claims are likely to be an exaggeration. He told The Print that he worked in his individual capacity as an election consultant on Bihar elections, and that the SCL team never went to Bihar. Claims of working in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in 2003 were added in the presentations back then to make a stronger sales pitch to potential clients.
Dan Muresan, head of the elections wing of SCL UK, however worked with Rai on 2009 Assembly elections and three experts of the Behavioural Dynamics Institute. They analysed why Mahesh Sharma, BJP leader and now a Union minster, lost the election. This was done by surveying voters and analysing their facial expressions to check whether they are lying. Behavoural Dynamics Institute was founded by the brother of one of the directors of SCL India and co-founder of SCL Group.
After 2009, Alexander Nix and Dan Muresan were in touch with Rai. Around 2011, they started training surveyors, which is when Rai learnt of the leading questions and that a client had already been hired by the company without his knowledge. Until then, they had been making presentations to top leaders of both BJP and Congress although Nix seemed more interested in a contract from the Congress.
Is The Company Still Active In India?
According to records available with the corporate affairs ministry, SCL India never held an annual general meeting, which it is supposed to under the Companies Act. Shivam Vij, the journalist who reported on the company for The Print, told YKA that Rai had often suggested that either Alexander Nix or he should resign from SCL India, but Nix stopped replying to emails. “So none of them ‘left’ SCL India but it’s a defunct organisation that does not exist out of the ROC (Registrar of Companies) records – even a board meeting was not held,” Vij told YKA.
Wylie suggested in his tweet that SCL or CA work in India, but didn’t specify whether it’s SCL Group or SCL India that does the election work. “To the most frequently asked question – yes SCL/CA works in India and has offices there,” he tweeted. The documents he shared on Twitter are also not dated. 2012 is the last year in which SCL India claims to have worked on elections here in the documents shared by Wylie.
Featured image: Twitter/Cambridge Analytica
The post In 3 Simple Charts, The Inside Story Of Cambridge Analytica’s Work On Indian Elections appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.