Christopher Wylie names Congress as Cambridge Analytica client; 10 updates

Whistleblower Chris Wylie had no direct knowledge of the company's work since 2014, said Cambridge Analytica

Reacting to Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's demand for an apology from Rahul Gandhi over former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie's claims of Congress-CA links, the party dubbed it to be "all false".

"It is all false. Why is India's perpetually lying Law Minister (Ravi Shankar Prasad) throwing allegations in the media. He is in power. Why doesn't he show all proof and then register an FIR? We challenge you (Bharatiya Janata Party). They fear they will be exposed if they probe," said party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.

Prasad on Tuesday said, "Today the whistleblower Christopher Wylie has confirmed that Cambridge Analytics worked with Congress. This has exposed Rahul Gandhi who was denying all along," adding, "Congress and Rahul Gandhi must now apologise."

Wylie said that the company had worked extensively in India and believed it was employed by the Congress party. The United Kingdom (UK) parliamentary committee started an investigation in the issue of fake news and questioned Wylie regarding the issue. 

Christopher Wylie told the United Kingdom (UK) parliamentary committee, "they (Cambridge Analytica) worked extensively in India. They have an office in India," Wylie said. He offered to provide the committee "documentation" on India, which was welcomed by Labour MP Paul Farrelly, who said India was a country that did not need any added "tensions".

Here are the top 10 developments in the Cambridge Analytica row:

1) Congress shows BJP- Cambridge Analytica links:At a press conference, the Congress alleged links between the BJP and Cambridge Analytica. As an evidence, it shared that the former BJP IT data head and current head of MyGov website Arvind Gupta tweet praising Cambridge Analytica in 2017. It also claimed that Union minister Smriti Irani follows Cambridge Analytica on Twitter.

2) Ex-Cambridge Analytica employee names Congress as a client: Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie on Tuesday told British Parliament that his company worked in India and that he "believes" Congress was a client.

"I believe their (Cambridge Analytica) client was Congress but I know that they have done all kinds of projects. I don't remember a national project but I know regionally. India's so big that one state can be as big as Britain," he said as part of his deposition.

Wylie also told the lawmakers that Cambridge Analytica has offices in India and employed staff. "I believe I have some documentation on India which I can also provide to the committee if that's something of interest."

Data analytics expert and formerly an employee at Cambridge Analytica, Wylie, alleged that the political consultancy firm used personal information harvested from more than 50 million Facebook users to influence elections.

3) BJP seeks apology from Rahul Gandhi: The BJP on Tuesday attacked the Congress over Chris Wylie’s deposition naming the Opposition party. The BJP demanded an apology from Congress President Rahul Gandhi. “Rahul Gandhi has been trying to divert attention. Today, he stands exposed. The Congress and he must apologise to the nation,” Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, adding the Congress’ allegations against the BJP were full of lies.

4) Congress dubs links with Cambridge Analytica ' all false': The Congress did not shy away from responding to the allegations against it. Its spokesperson, Randeep Singh Surjewala, pointed to the disclosure that a non-resident Indian billionaire from Gujarat was funding campaigns so that the Congress could be defeated in the elections. "It is all false. Why is India's perpetually lying Law Minister (Ravi Shankar Prasad) throwing allegations in the media. He is in power. Why doesn't he show all proof and then register an FIR? We challenge you (Bharatiya Janata Party). They fear they will be exposed if they probe," said party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.

5) Chris Wylie had no direct knowledge of company's work since 2014: Cambridge Analytica

Cambridge Analytica (CA), which is in the midst of the Facebook data privacy storm, has come to the fore and responded to the hearing of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, saying that whistleblower Chris Wylie had "no direct knowledge of the company's work or practices since 2014."

"Chris Wylie was a part-time contractor who left Cambridge Analytica in July 2014 and has no direct knowledge of the company's work or practices since that date. He was at the company for less than a year, after which he was made the subject of restraining undertakings to prevent his misuse of the company's intellectual property while attempting to set up his own rival firm. He was not, as he claims, a founder of Cambridge Analytica," the firm, said in a statement.

"Wylie has misrepresented himself and the company to the committee, and previously to the news media. He admits himself that what he says is speculation," the statement added.

6) Indian billionaire paid Dan Muresan to make Congress lose elections: Wylie said that his predecessor, Dan Muresan, Head of Elections at SCL Group, had also been working in India before he died in Kenya under mysterious circumstances. Paul-Olivier Dehaye, co-founder of PersonalData.IO, a service that helps individuals regain control over their personal data, also giving evidence to the committee, added that he had heard reports that Muresan was being paid by an Indian billionaire who wanted Congress to lose elections.

"So he was pretending to work for one party but actually paid underhand by someone else," said Dehaye. He added that it would be for Indian and Kenyan journalists to get together to investigate the matter further.

7) Govt issued notice to Cambridge Analytica: The government had on Friday issued a notice to UK-based Cambridge Analytica, asking it to give a list of clients and the source of data it had collected.'

The IT Ministry has asked the firm to respond by March 31 on six questions, including how the company had collected user data, whether consent was taken from the individuals, and how the data was used.

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also suggested that the firm had a role in Gandhi's social media campaign and the Congress' "poisonous" electioneering in Gujarat.

8) Cambridge Analytica has details of 50 million Facebook users: Wylie has accused his former employer, Cambridge Analytica, of gathering the details of 50 million users on Facebook through a personality quiz in 2014. He alleges that because 270,000 people took the quiz, the data of some 50 million users, mainly in the US, was harvested without their explicit consent via their friend networks.

Wylie claims the data was sold to Cambridge Analytica, which then used it to psychologically profile people and deliver material in favour of Donald Trump during the 2016 US presidential elections. He also criticised Cambridge Analytica for running campaigns in "struggling democracies", which he called "an example of what modern-day colonialism looks like".

"You have a wealthy company from a developed nation going into an economy or democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground and taking advantage of that to profit from that," he told MPs.

Cambridge Analytica denies any of the data acquired was used as part of the services it provided to the Trump campaign.

9) Facebook’s take on this: As the controversy continues to escalate, Zuckerberg took out full-page advertisements in several UK and US Sunday newspapers to apologise. "This was a breach of trust, and I am sorry," the back-page ads said.

Rebecca Stimson, Facebook's head of public policy, said: "Facebook fully recognises the level of public and Parliamentary interest in these issues and support your belief that these issues must be addressed at the most senior levels of the company by those in an authoritative position to answer your questions.”

"As such Mr Zuckerberg has personally asked one of his deputies to make themselves available to give evidence in person to the Committee," she said, adding that both men likely to step in the report directly to Zuckerberg and are among the longest-serving senior representatives in Facebook's 15-year history.

10)  French vigilante says NaMo app shares its data with third-party illegally: Meanwhile, the Narendra Modi government is now facing the ire of privacy vigilantes for illegally sharing data from the "official app of the Prime Minister of India" with a third party company in the US. A French vigilante hacker in a series of tweets alleged that the personal data including email IDs, photos, gender and names of the users of Modi's mobile app were being sent to a third party domain without their consent.

"When you create a profile in the official @narendramodi #Android app, all your device info (OS, network type, Carrier …) and personal data (email, photo, gender, name, …) are sent without your consent to a third-party domain called https://bsmedia.business-standard.comin.wzrkt.com," the privacy vigilante who goes by the name Elliot Alderson tweeted on March 23. Alderson claimed that this domain belongs to a US-based company called CleverTap, a mobile marketing solution provider with offices in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

In an undercover report last week, Cambridge Analytica executives had been caught boasting that they, along with parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories, had worked in more than 200 elections around the world, including India, Nigeria, Kenya, the Czech Republic and Argentina.