UK to continue probe despite Cambridge Analytica shutting shop

The closure of Cambridge Analytica and the associated firm SCL Elections will not have any impact on two UK investigations into it.

Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which is investigating SCL Group (which is not shuttering) and Cambridge Analytica as part of a wider investigation into the use of personal data and analytics in political campaigns, said it would continue its civil and criminal investigations and would pursue individuals and directors “as appropriate and necessary” and also monitor successor companies to “ensure the public is safeguarded.”

“We will be examining closely the details of the announcements of the winding down of Cambridge Analytica and the status of its parent company,” it said in a statement.

A separate investigation by the House of Commons committee on digital, culture, media and sport into fake news will also continue to examine issues relating to Cambridge Analytica. “Cambridge Analytica and SCL group cannot be allowed to delete their data history by closing. The investigations into their work are vital,” said the committee’s chair Damian Collins.

Earlier this week, the committee sent a strongly worded letter to Facebook, with 40 questions that had not yet been answered in its testimony, and a deadline of May 11 for Mark Zuckerberg to agree to give evidence directly to the committee before May 24, failing which a formal summons could be issued to him.

Insolvency proceedings

On Wednesday, Cambridge Analytica said it and SCL Elections would be commencing insolvency proceedings after “numerous and unfounded” accusations, vilification, and “siege of media coverage” had “driven away virtually all of the company’s customers and suppliers.”

Just over a week ago, the company held a press conference that all national issues across the world, including in India, involving SCL Elections would be handled by an independent investigation.

Over the past months, Cambridge Analytica and its associated organisations have been embroiled in allegations that the Facebook profiles of millions of Americans had been wrongly harvested and used by the company, while a separate undercover investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 News pointed to some of the unsavoury tactics that the company touted as some of the means that it used to help political campaigns achieve their goals.

Questions have also been raised around the role the company played in the Trump presidential campaign and campaigns to leave the EU, as well as in India and beyond. Documents made public by whistleblower Christopher Wylie highlighted the “extensive” work conducted by SCL Elections in India, helping parties target audiences based on factors such as caste.

Focus on Emerdata

“Cambridge Analytica specialises in disinformation! We need to make sure their shut down is not just some rebranding or a way to hide from investigations. The SAME PEOPLE set up ANOTHER COMPANY and yesterday issued new company resolutions!,” tweeted Wylie, pointing to Emerdata, a company set up in August 2017. According to Emerdata’s Companies House record in the UK, the company’s business involves “data processing, hosting and related activities” while Alexander Nix, the suspended CEO of Cambridge

Analytica, was appointed as a director in February, only for this to be terminated in April. Among its directors are Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer, daughter of the founder and funder of the SCL Group and Cambridge Analytica, and Republican donor, Robert Mercer. The company issued resolutions on the removal of pre-emption rights and the allotment of securities on Tuesday.

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