{"id":595,"date":"2018-03-29T16:28:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T14:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=595"},"modified":"2018-03-29T16:28:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T14:28:14","slug":"cambridge-analytica-predecessor-had-access-to-secret-mod-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=595","title":{"rendered":"Cambridge Analytica predecessor had access to secret MoD information"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SCL, Cambridge Analytica\u2019s predecessor, had access to secret UK information and was singled out for praise by the UK\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk\/ministry-of-defence\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Ministry of Defence<\/a>\u00a0for the training it provided to a psychological operations warfare group, according to documents newly released by MPs.<\/p>\n<p>An endorsement from an official at the 15 UK Psychological Operations Group dated January 2012 concluded that they would \u201chave no hesitation in inviting SCL to tender for further contracts of this nature\u201d.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 1\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-news--item rich-link--pillar-news\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more-text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The document also noted that SCL \u2013 which was subsequently rebranded as\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/cambridge-analytica\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Cambridge Analytica<\/a>\u00a0by Steve Bannon \u2013 was a company that was permitted to have \u201croutine access to secret information\u201d and delivered a training programme that included a \u201cclassified case study from current operations in Helmand\u201d in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>The official British note of approval was one of over 100 pages of documents handed over to the digital, media, culture and sport select committee by Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie earlier this week, following a oral hearing that lasted nearly four hours.<\/p>\n<p>Another of the documents released by the MPs is a confidential legal memo dated July 2014, which says it was sent to Bannon, the former Trump adviser and Breitbart CEO, and Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of Trump-backer and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. It was also sent to Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica.<\/p>\n<p>The author\u2019s name and firm is redacted, but the memo discusses how far could Cambridge Analytica, a British company, could participate in US elections, given that donations and contributions by foreign nationals are banned. The documents say that the US arm of the company, formed in June 2014, could participate as a vendor of technology as long as Nix, a Briton, was \u201crecused from the substantive management of any such clients involved in US elections\u201d.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 2\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-news--item rich-link--pillar-news\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more-text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>At the parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, Wylie noted that Vote Leave had spent \u00a32.7m with a digital marketing firm called AggregateIQ, and said it had previously undisclosed links to\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/cambridge-analytica\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Cambridge Analytica<\/a>\/SCL. Cambridge Analytica has been accused of benefiting from harvesting the data of 50 million Americans from Facebook via a series of personality quizzes.<\/p>\n<p>The documents released appear to support that, including:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"bullet\">\u2022<\/span>\u00a0A brochure promising to create US election campaign tools in 2014 that was \u201cprepared for SCL elections by AggregateIQ Data Services\u201d at a cost of over $500,000 using \u201cmodelling data\u201d to target 100 million or more Americans from SCL.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"bullet\">\u2022<\/span>\u00a0A services agreement between AggregateIQ and SCL to support that work, listing a schedule of monthly payments, although the document released is not signed.<\/p>\n<div id=\"dfp-ad--inline1\" class=\"js-ad-slot ad-slot ad-slot--inline ad-slot--inline1 ad-slot--rendered\" data-link-name=\"ad slot inline1\" data-name=\"inline1\" data-mobile=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|fluid\" data-desktop=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|620,1|620,350|fluid\" data-google-query-id=\"CO-VqrLekdoCFUardwod4isNmQ\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/59666047\/theguardian.com\/uk-news\/article\/ng_6__container__\" class=\"ad-slot__content\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"bullet\">\u2022<\/span>\u00a0A separate contract for work dated November 2013, in which AggregateIQ agrees to work for SCL Elections UK, and which is signed by company AggregateIQ\u2019s chief executive, Zack Massingham, and its chief technology officer Jeff Silvester, to work on a political campaign in Trinidad and Tobago.<\/p>\n<p>Wylie had told MPs it was striking that Vote Leave and three other pro-Brexit groups \u2013\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2018\/mar\/24\/beleave-cambridge-analytica-brexit-boris-gove\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">BeLeave, which targeted students<\/a>; Veterans for Britain, and Northern Ireland\u2019s Democratic Unionist party \u2013 all used the services of AggregateIQ to help target voters online. He accused the Leave campaign of \u201ccheating\u201d to win the referendum because Vote Leave donated \u00a3625,000 to BeLeave, which in turn spent the money on AggregateIQ. The donation allowed Vote Leave to stay within its \u00a37m legal limit.<\/p>\n<p>AggregateIQ has denied it is linked to Cambridge Analytica. Silvester\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/www.timescolonist.com\/news\/local\/victoria-firm-aggregateiq-denies-link-to-data-miner-at-heart-of-facebook-controversy-1.23212582\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">told the Times Colonist<\/a>, that \u201cAggregateIQ has never been, and is not a part of, Cambridge Analytica or [its parent firm] SCL. AggregateIQ has never entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Wylie told MPs on Tuesday that the corporate structures were designed to be confusing and ensure that regulators could not always keep up with what was going on.<\/p>\n<p>Source\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2018\/mar\/29\/cambridge-analytica-predecessor-had-access-to-secret-mod-information<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCL, Cambridge Analytica\u2019s predecessor, had access to secret UK information and was singled out for praise by the UK\u00a0Ministry of Defence\u00a0for the training it provided to a psychological operations warfare group, according to documents newly released by MPs. An endorsement from an official at the 15 UK Psychological Operations Group dated January 2012 concluded that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":597,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}