A Canadian company that worked to identify and target voters in favour of Brexit is facing renewed scrutiny after allegations that the campaign it worked for may have breached spending rules.
Victoria-based AggregateIQ (AIQ) was hired to do $5 million worth of data analytics for the 鈥淰ote Leave鈥� campaign ahead of the 2016 referendum on Britain鈥檚 membership in the European Union.
Shahmir Sanni, who volunteered for a youth campaign known as BeLeave, told The Guardian newspaper the group worked with Vote Leave in a way that breached spending cap.
鈥淚t not only shattered that dream and belief I had in Britain but also made me scared for the rest of the world if Britain, the beacon of democracy, can be cheated like that and its people lied to like that,鈥� Sanni told
The U.K. firm Cambridge Analytica has in recent weeks over allegedly using Facebook data from 50 million users without their knowledge or consent.
Canadian data scientist Christopher Wylie, who worked at Cambridge Analytica before famously speaking out against the tactics, has said that he helped to set up AIQ.
鈥淭hey would be looking for people, ones they should be sending different message to,鈥� Wylie told The Guardian of AIQ.
AIQ is now under investigation by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, which is looking into whether Canadian Facebook data was misused.
AIQ says it 鈥渨orks in full compliance within all legal and regulatory requirements in all jurisdictions where it operates鈥� and 鈥渉as never knowingly been involved in any illegal activity.鈥�
The data companies working on Brexit reflect a new reality of political campaigning, where organizers are increasingly relying on software to comb the social media accounts of individual voters.
Pollster Quito Maggi of Mainstreet Research says that 鈥渒nowing how people might vote or even if they will vote is the ultimate aim of collecting that data.鈥�
It鈥檚 unclear whether the alleged illegal spending on Brexit affected the outcome of the contentious vote but the allegations could serve as a warning to election regulators.
With a report from CTV Senior Parliamentary Correspondent Glen McGregor
