The Political Influence Industry in Canada - An Open Media Report

They are also the result of a struggle between a large, and largely invisible, number of companies that comprise what we call the “Political Influence Industry.” Readers will probably be familiar with the name Cambridge Analytica, the disgraced company that manipulated the data used by the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. [...] But who are these companies? What do they do? Who do they work for? And what are the political, legal, and social implications? This report aims to shed light on the extent and nature of the Political Influence Industry in Canada – to draw the curtain back, and to attempt to reveal the network of companies, big and small, employed by Canada’s political parties during and between election campaigns. [...] The effect of the amendment was to attempt to label the provisions in the CEA regarding the existence and availability of parties’ policies on protection of personal information as a “national, uniform, exclusive, and complete” privacy regime. [...] At the same time the recent amendments to the Canada Elections Act make it clear that the published privacy policies of the FPPs apply to “any person or organization acting on the party’s behalf.” These requirements say nothing about the capture of data with an individual’s consent (express or otherwise). [...] In 2019, the OPC, and the BC OIPC, investigated the practices of the Victoria based company Aggregate IQ Data Services Ltd which drew international scrutiny as a result of its role providing software development, database management, and digital advertising services to campaigns in the US, the UK (Brexit), and Canada.