CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA: FIRM OFFERED TO SECRETLY FILM POLITICIANS IN COMPROMISING SITUATIONS, INVESTIGATION FINDS - Independent

20/3/2018
INDYTECH
CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA: FIRM OFFERED TO SECRETLY FILM POLITICIANS IN COMPROMISING SITUATIONS, INVESTIGATION FINDS
Alexander Nix, chief executive of Cambridge Analytica (right) and Mark Turnbull, the managing director of Cambridge Analytica Political Global (left) / Channel 4 News
Chief executive offers to 'send some girls around to candidate’s house', adding Ukrainian girls 'are very beautiful, I find that works very well'

HARRIET AGERHOLM
@HarrietAgerholm

Senior executives at troubled data company firm Cambridge Analytica have been secretly filmed saying they can entrap politicians in compromising situations, a new investigation claims.

Chief executive Alexander Nix said the company could offer bribes and the services of sex workers to officials and use evidence of the interactions as leverage, according to the footage.

Cambridge Analytica is credited with helping Donald Trump win the US presidency and was employed by the Leave campaign during the UK’s referendum on EU membership.

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The undercover footage, to be broadcast on Channel 4 on Monday night, comes after The Observer reported the firm illegally harvested 50 million Facebook profiles to target certain voters.

The films provide further insight into the apparent extent of the company’s power and how much sway over political systems the group seemed to believe they had.

When asked about finding damaging material on political opponents, Mr Nix was filmed saying the company could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.

In another exchange in the footage, Mr Nix described how the company could bribe politicians and use evidence of the exchange against them. “We’ll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the internet,” he said.

The conversations were secretly filmed at a series of meetings at London hotels over four months, between November 2017 and January 2018, where an undercover reporter for Channel 4 News posed as a fixer for a wealthy client hoping to get candidates elected in Sri Lanka.

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It has been alleged Mr Nix misled the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is now asking him to provide further information. He denies the claims.

Also in attendance at the meetings were Mark Turnbull, the managing director of Cambridge Analytica Political Global, and the company’s chief data officer, Dr Alex Tayler.

Mr Turnbull described how Cambridge Analytica could gather damaging material on opponents and discreetly post it on social media and the internet.

He said: “... we just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again… like a remote control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’, the next question is, ‘who’s put that out?’”.

The executives were also filmed saying Cambridge Analytica and its parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories had worked on more than two hundred elections across the world, including in Nigeria, Kenya, the Czech Republic, India and Argentina.

On Monday, the Information Commissioner's Office announced it was seeking a warrant to raid Cambridge Analytica and seize the company's servers.

A Cambridge Analytica spokesman said: “We entirely refute any allegation that Cambridge Analytica or any of its affiliates use entrapment, bribes, or so-called ‘honey-traps’ for any purpose whatsoever.

“Cambridge Analytica does not use untrue material for any purpose.”

They also said opposition research and intelligence gathering were common and legitimate practices.