6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO

Advertisement

LOG IN

Home Latest news EU election results French election UK general election War in Ukraine Newsletter

NEWS CYBERSECURITY AND DATA PROTECTION

Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit

vote and US election, claims whistleblower
Giving evidence to MPs, Chris Wylie claimed the company’s actions during the Brexit
campaign were ‘a breach of the law.’

SHARE

Free article usually reserved for subscribers

https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 1/20
6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie speaks during a press conference at the Frontline Club on March 26, 2018 in
London | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

MARCH 27, 2018 5:46 PM CET

BY MARK SCOTT

LONDON — Misuse of data and "cheating" by Cambridge Analytica and other

companies associated with the firm may have altered the outcome of both the U.S.
presidential election and the U.K.'s Brexit referendum, a company whistleblower told
British lawmakers.

Chris Wylie, the former director of research at Cambridge Analytica, which has been
accused of illegally collecting online data of up to 50 million Facebook users, said that
his work allowed Donald Trump's presidential campaign to garner unprecedented
insight into voters' habits ahead of the 2016 vote.

He added that a Canadian business with ties to Cambridge Analytica's parent

company, SCL Group, also provided analysis for the Vote Leave campaign ahead of the
2016 Brexit referendum. This research, Wylie said, likely breached the U.K.'s strict
campaign financing laws and may have helped to sway the final Brexit outcome.

https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 2/20
6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO
Advertisement

Advertisement

"If we allow cheating in our democratic process ... What about next time? What about
the time after that? This is a breach of the law. This is cheating," he told British
politicians Tuesday. "This is not some council race, or a by-election. This is an
irreversible change to the constitutional settlement of this country."

“ "It's categorically untrue that Cambridge

Analytica has never used Facebook data" — Chris
Wylie

https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 3/20
6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO

Wylie said he was "incredibly remorseful" for helping to set up the company. "Nothing
good has come from Cambridge Analytica, it's not a legitimate business."

Cambridge Analytica refuted Wylie's accusations, saying that it did not

inappropriately collect or share data on Facebook users with third-parties. It added
that Wylie had been a "part-time contractor" who left the organization in 2014, who
did not have any knowledge of the company's workings beyond that date.

"A further independent audit alongside regulatory investigations will confirm this
once and for all," the company said in a message on Twitter. "There’s not much more we
can say on the matter."

Wylie's comments to a parliamentary committee come as global anger continues to rise

on how people's Facebook and other online data may have been misused as part of
political campaigns from the United States to Kenya.

Advertisement

Advertisement

https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 4/20
6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, took responsibility for potential

shortcomings in a message posted on the social network last week. Three U.S.
congressional committees have already called on the 33-year-old to testify on his
company's involvement in the ongoing data scandal. The social network denies any
wrongdoing.

British politicians also demanded that Zuckerberg give evidence in the country's
ongoing investigation into the matter, but Facebook's chief wrote to Damian Collins,
the chair of the U.K. parliament's digital, culture, media and sports committee, to say
that he would not give evidence.

Instead, either Chris Cox, Facebook's chief product officer, or Mike Schroepfer, the
company's chief technology officer, is expected to testify to British lawmakers
sometime next week, according to U.K. officials.

"We would still like to hear evidence from Mark Zuckerberg as well," Collins said
Tuesday.

Over four hours of testimony, Wylie gave insight into how Cambridge Analytica was
able to build complex data analysis tools to target potential voters during multiple U.S.
campaigns. That included ties to Aggregate IQ, or AIQ, a Canadian company which
helped to develop the underlying algorithm that was used by Cambridge Analytica to
target Facebook users. Both companies deny such a connection.

"The projects I was working on may have had a larger impact than I first expected," said
Wylie, who worked for SCL Group, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, for about
one and a half years. "It's categorically untrue that Cambridge Analytica has never used
Facebook data."

Advertisement

https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 5/20
6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO

Advertisement

The former employee also outlined how AIQ was used by the Vote Leave campaign to
target British voters ahead of the Brexit referendum.

https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 6/20
6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO

A man looks through papers inside the offices of Cambridge Analytica in London on the evening of March 23, 2018, just
hours after a judge approved a search warrant of the offices | Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images

Questions have been raised as to whether payments to the Canadian company may
have broken British campaign financing rules, though both the company and Vote
Leave deny these allegations.

Still, Wylie said, the use of such data analytics by campaigns linked to leaving the EU
had a material effect in convincing many people how to vote. He added that he would
have voted to leave the EU if he could have voted, and his evidence was about
protecting the U.K.'s democratic system, and not about overturning the 2016 vote.

"I think it's incredibly reasonable to say that AIQ played a very significant role in Leave
winning," he told British lawmakers. "My question is where did they get the data? How
do you create a massive operation in a country where AIQ had not worked before?"

Wylie also gave insight into how Cambridge Analytica was created in late 2013. The
unit was set up by Robert Mercer, a U.S. billionaire; Steve Bannon, a former campaign
manager for Trump's 2016 campaign; and Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica's chief
executive, who was suspended following the most recent allegations.

To give it an air of academic credibility, according to Wylie, the founders wanted to

play up potential research ties with Cambridge University. Aleksandr Kogan, a

https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 7/20
6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO

American-Russian professor at the university, created a smartphone app that provided

Cambridge Analytica with reams of digital information on roughly 50 million
Facebook users. These data transfers, according to Facebook, broke the social
network's terms and conditions.

Advertisement

Advertisement

"Whenever Steve Bannon would come into town, we would set up this fake office to
present a more academic side of the company," Wylie told the MPs. "Steven Bannon
said we should call it Cambridge Analytica because of its close association with the
university."
https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 8/20
6/12/24, 4:34 PM Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower – POLITICO

When asked by a British lawmaker if the data-mining company had any ties to
Cambridge University, Wylie added: "There was nothing formalized with the
university. It was done professor to professors. It sat in a grey area."

Also On POLITICO

DIGITAL POLITICS

You can check out of Facebook, but never leave

BY MARK SCOTT

https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/ 9/20