{"id":266361,"date":"2018-07-04T10:31:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T14:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/protecting-information-age-data-driven-politics\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:09:09","slug":"protecting-information-age-data-driven-politics","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2018\/07\/protecting-information-age-data-driven-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting our information in the age of data-driven politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics (Ethics committee) released its interim report<\/a> on the \u201cbreach of personal information involving Cambridge Analytica and Facebook<\/a>.\u201d The report makes bold and welcome recommendations for the future of elections in Canada. Along with recommending a strengthened mandate for the federal privacy commissioner and including political parties under its jurisdiction<\/a>, as Colin Bennet suggested in Policy Options<\/em> in 2013<\/a>, the cross-party committee recommended that Canada adopt \u201cdata protection.\u201d This would take the form of regulations on the processing of personal data<\/a>, similar to those Europe recently introduced.<\/p>\n

To understand why data protection is necessary, we can take a closer look at the activities of a company that engaged in data analysis for political actors \u2013 the Canadian firm AggregateIQ (AIQ).<\/p>\n

AggregateIQ and the political technology industry<\/strong><\/p>\n

BC-based data analytics firm AIQ found itself at the centre of an international scandal this year around the use of information gleaned from Facebook users. Christopher Wylie, a former employee and whistleblower from the company that extracted the information from Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, said that AIQ bought some of the data to help with the pro-Brexit campaign in the UK<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AIQ told the Canadian MPs at committee that it sees itself as part of a legitimate global political technology industry. Canada, like many other Western democracies, has witnessed parties turn to data analytics and digital media to better run their campaigns. For its proponents, technology-intensive campaigning<\/a> gets people out to vote. It also helps parties to find the right supporters, be more responsible with their limited funds, and ultimately win.<\/p>\n

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Jeff Silvester of AggregateIQ appears at a Commons ethics committee in Ottawa on June 12, 2018. The Canadian Press, by Sean Kilpatrick.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I call these tools \u201cpolitical engagement platforms\u201d (PEPs), because they facilitate a political campaign\u2019s contact with voters as well as its internal operations. PEPs are used by the major political parties<\/a>, and nonpartisan tools like NationBuilder are used by campaigns and advocacy groups across Canada<\/a>. The political engagement platform is a particular area of concern, because it combines data aggregation and data analytics.<\/p>\n

AIQ, by all accounts, seems to have had little uptake in Canada. This is not because there is an aversion to technology in politics, but because the parties already have their own solutions in place. The Conservative Party uses NationBuilder<\/a> together with a proprietary database. The Liberal Party uses the US Democratic Party-affiliated NGP VAN, and the NDP has consults with another Democrat-affiliated firm, Bluestate Digital, as well as using its own tool, Populus. All these firms and the parties will have to adapt if Canada implements the committee\u2019s recommendations for the protection of data.<\/p>\n

Disaggregating AggregateIQ<\/strong><\/p>\n

What exactly does AIQ do in the political technology industry? Some clues may be found in an application it made in 2017 to the National Research Council (NRC) for funding to develop a \u201cpolitical campaign online reporting tool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The application to the NRC, written by AIQ\u2019s Jeff Silvester and obtained under the Access to Information Act<\/em> by the Canadian Press<\/a>, is a clear description of the tools brought together in a single political engagement platform. It was submitted after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

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A page from AggregateIQ\u2019s application for funding from the National Research Council. Source: The Canadian Press.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though AIQ included more detailed descriptions of these tasks in its application, these were deemed confidential third-party information and redacted.<\/p>\n

But the information that was released largely matches my own observations of political engagement platforms in Canada. Crucially, what these technologies do is collect political data, found elsewhere and make it operational for the parties they work for. Here are some of the things political engagement platforms allow parties to do, according to my research.<\/p>\n