The data analytics firm
that worked on the Donald Trump election campaign was offered material from
Israeli hackers who had accessed the private emails of two politicians who are
now heads of state, witnesses have told the Guardian.
Multiple sources have
described how senior directors of Cambridge Analytica – including its chief
executive, Alexander Nix – gave staff instructions to handle material provided
by computer hackers in election campaigns in Nigeria and St Kitts and Nevis.
They claim there were two
episodes in 2015 that alarmed members of staff and led them to refuse to handle
the data, which they assumed would have been obtained illegally.
SCL Elections, Cambridge
Analytica’s parent company, denied taking possession of or using hacked or
stolen personal information from such individuals for any purpose in either
campaign.
The revelations are the
latest to focus attention on Cambridge Analytica, whose activities are being
investigated in the US by the special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his
inquiry into possible Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election.
The firm is under pressure
to explain how it came to have unauthorised access to millions of Facebook
profiles. Politicians in the US and UK have accused it of giving misleading
statements about its work, and the information commissioner has demanded access
to the company’s databases.
In all, the Guardian and
Observer has spoken to seven individuals with knowledge of Cambridge Analytica
and its campaign in Nigeria in early 2015.
Hired by a Nigerian
billionaire to support the re-election of Goodluck Jonathan, Cambridge
Analytica was paid an estimated £2m to orchestrate a ferocious campaign against
his rival, the opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari. Jonathan lost out to Buhari
in the presidential race. There is no suggestion Jonathan knew of the covert
operation.
Staff working on the
campaign say in early 2015 they met Israeli cybersecurity contractors in
Cambridge Analytica’s offices in Mayfair, London. Employees say they were told
the meeting was arranged by Brittany Kaiser, a senior director at the firm.
The Guardian and Observer
have been told the Israelis brought a laptop from their office in Tel Aviv and
handed employees a USB stick containing what they believed were hacked personal
emails.
Sources said Nix, who was
suspended on Tuesday, and other senior directors told staff to search for
incriminating material that could be used to damage opposition candidates,
including Buhari.
“It made everyone feel
really uncomfortable,” said one source. “They wanted people to load it into
their email programs.”
People “freaked out”,
another employee said. “They wanted to have nothing to do with it.”
One member of the campaign
team told the Guardian and Observer that the material they believed had been
hacked included Buhari’s medical records. “I’m 99% sure of that. Or if they
didn’t have his medical records they at least had emails that referred to what
was going on.”
When news of the London
meeting filtered back to Cambridge Analytica staff working on the ground in
Nigeria, it caused panic, the source said. Local security advisers told the
firm’s team to leave the country immediately because if opposition supporters
found out, they could turn on them.
“What is clear is that the
security of their employees didn’t even seem to have occurred to them,” said
one former employee. “It was a very serious situation and they had to evacuate
immediately.”
An SCL Elections
spokesperson said team members working on the Nigeria campaign remained in the
country throughout the original campaigning period, and left in accordance with
the company’s campaign plan.
The Guardian has seen an
email from Nix dated 26 January 2015, referring to the “Israeli team”.
It says: “Although it is
outside of our remit, I have asked for an update on what the Israeli team has
been working on and what they will be delivering between now and the election.”
In a second episode in
early 2015, sources said the same Israeli team that had worked on the Nigeria
campaign obtained private information of the St Kitts and Nevis politician
Timothy Harris. At the time he was an opposition leader, and is now prime
minister.
Sources have said staff did
not want to handle what appeared to be stolen material. “Nobody wanted to have anything
to do with it,” one employee said.
A statement from SCL
Elections said: “During an election campaign, it is normal for SCL Elections to
meet with vendors seeking to provide services as a subcontractor. SCL Elections
did not take possession of or use any personal information from such
individuals for any purposes. SCL Elections does not use ‘hacked’ or ‘stolen’
data.”
The statement added:
“Members of the SCL Elections team that worked on the Nigeria campaign remained
in country throughout the original campaigning period, although the election
was rescheduled and SCL was not retained for the entirety of the extended
campaign period.
“Team members left in
accordance with the company’s campaign plan. Team members were regularly
briefed about security concerns prior to and during deployment and measures
were taken to ensure the team’s safety throughout.”
The revelations will add to
the questions facing Cambridge Analytica and the techniques it uses to
influence elections for its clients.
In the UK, the Electoral
Commission and the Information Commissioner’s Office are investigating the firm
for breaches of electoral and data protection law.
Facebook admits compromise
and promise to implement watertight security measures
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