Oral evidence: Fake News, HC 363
Oral evidence, 27 February 2018.
Chair
Good morning. Welcome to Alexander Nix to this further session of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and our inquiry on fake news and disinformation. During the course of our investigation so far, it has been clear to us that understanding of data analytics and behavioural patterns online is key to understanding the way that messaging works. That is why we were particularly keen to talk to Cambridge Analytica, which is one of the leading companies in the world—I think it would be fair to say—in understanding the way in which data analytics and behaviour activity works online. We have a range of questions that we want to ask you, Mr Nix, about that. We are also this morning publishing the letter you sent to me on 23 February following the evidence session we had in Washington, in which you raised some concerns about things that were said about Cambridge Analytica at that hearing that you wanted to correct for the record. I am publishing that letter this morning, but I wanted to start by asking a couple of questions relating to that letter and to clear up a few things. One of the issues you raised in the letter in response to Mr Matheson’s question was to state that Cambridge Analytica had never had any involvement in the EU referendum campaign. To quote for the record for people who may not have seen the letter, you say, “Cambridge Analytica had no involvement in the referendum, was not retained by any campaign, and did not provide any services (paid or unpaid) to any campaign.” That is what you said in your letter. We are publishing that today but I wanted to be clear. You will understand why this confusion has arisen about Cambridge Analytica’s role, because there have been public statements made by you that did associate you with the referendum campaign and with Leave.EU in particular. Why are those previous statements not correct but what you say now correct instead?
Alexander Nix
Let me start by saying thank you for the invitation to come and speak to this Committee. Fake news is a credible threat to the public and indeed to the industry that we work in, and we are pleased to try to help in any way that we can. We have been very consistent for the last two years about our involvement, or lack of involvement, in the EU referendum. There was one statement only, which was put out erroneously, that indicated that we were involved in the campaign. It was drafted by a slightly overzealous PR consultant who worked for us, and referenced work that we hoped and intended to undertake for the campaign. Subsequently, work was never undertaken. The moment that that statement went out we were absolutely crystal clear to all the media outlets that we were not involved and that it had been released in error, and we tried to correct the press again and again and again. Unfortunately, and somewhat ironically, this was an example of fake news that was disseminated and spun out virally. By the time it had penetrated the internet it became a matter of fact even though there was no fact behind it.
Chair
So that I am clear, is this the statement? I will read from it. Tell me if this is the statement you are referring to: “Recently Cambridge Analytica has teamed up with Leave.EU—the UK’s largest group advocating for a British exit… from the European Union—to help them better understand and communicate with UK voters. We have already helped supercharge Leave.EU’s social media campaign by ensuring the right messages get to the right voters online”. Is that the statement you are referring to?
Alexander Nix
That is the statement, and this was a statement that was prepared in anticipation of working with that organisation and was released, unfortunately, ahead of any work starting. Again, it was an error. We were very vocal about that at the time and we addressed it head-on immediately when we realised that it had been put out.
Chair
I have seen that quotation in an article for Campaign magazine, which is in your name.
Alexander Nix
That is where it was put out.
Chair
Yes. It is an article in your name and it is still on their website today, so why have you not asked them to withdraw it if that statement was put out in error?
Alexander Nix
I cannot speak to that personally, but I am sure that we have asked them. I can double-check for you.
Chair
I think we all understand that sometimes an over-eager press officer might say the wrong thing. It is quite different when the leading figure in a company signs off an article that goes out in their name and the key fact in that argument is wrong. It does not just refer to an anticipated relationship. It says that you have already worked for them, “We have already helped supercharge Leave.EU’s social media” messaging and, in particular, references the growth in the Facebook page for the campaign. Presumably that refers to work that has been done not just things you hope to do.
Alexander Nix
While your point is valid—we have addressed it head-on again and again—the facts of the matter are that we did no work on that campaign or any campaigns. We were not involved in the referendum. While we could dwell on this, I think we should probably look at the facts of the matter, which are that we were not involved, period.
Chair
What you are saying is clear. Unfortunately, the question will still keep coming up because people will reference this and think it is odd that a statement was put out that was totally untrue, when it refers to not just work you hope to do but work that you have already done. This will not be news to you, but in the Newsnight programme that you were interviewed in, they had had footage of a Cambridge Analytica employee sitting in a press conference with Leave.EU. It was Brittany Kaiser, and she talked about the fact that she would be working on running large-scale research for Leave.EU. That was in 2015. Was that work undertaken? Did she do that as a Cambridge Analytica employee or was that done in a personal capacity?
Alexander Nix
It is not unusual, when you are exploring a working relationship with a client, to speak in public together about the work that you hope to undertake. That was simply an example of that.
Chair
She was talking about work that they hoped to do, but that work was not done.
Alexander Nix
Exactly right.
Chair
When we talk about you or your organisation, when you say that work was not done and there was never any work done, does that apply to not just Cambridge Analytica but all your affiliate companies and companies in your group as well?
Alexander Nix
That is absolutely right. No company that falls under any of the group vehicles in Cambridge Analytica or SCL or any other company that we are involved with has worked on the EU referendum.
Chair
Any associates or anyone?
Alexander Nix
Or any associates.
Chair
In April 2017, Andy Wigmore, the communications director at Leave.EU, put out a tweet in response to some news from the Conservative party about the people it had hired to advise it on the last general election for its digital campaign. He says, “You should use Cambridge Analytics—we did apparently can highly recommend them”. Why would he have said that?
Alexander Nix
You are going to have to speak to Andy about that. I cannot begin to second-guess why he would have said that. My understanding is that he subsequently changed that statement, but, again, you would have to speak to him.
Chair
He also put out another tweet saying, “Leave.EU campaign brings in US voter data and messaging firm Cambridge Analytica”. That was a separate tweet.
Alexander Nix
I do not know the date of that, but I can only assume that at the time he was vying to be the designated leave campaign and that by associating himself with a data analytics firm such as ours, which had quite a high profile for our work in the United States in the US presidential primaries, he was hoping that would give him additional credibility through association.
Chair
That was in November 2015 and that was presumably after the press conference that Brittany Kaiser took part in as well. Again, that would suggest that there was a working relationship between Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU at that time.
Alexander Nix
I do not know how to explain this to you more clearly: we did not work with them. However you look at this or however it appears to you or whatever tweets other people have said about the situation, we did no paid or unpaid work. We had no formalised relationship with them. We did not work on the EU referendum with that organisation or any other organisation.
Chair
The reason I think it is important that we ask these questions is that we are publishing a written statement from you that seems to correct the record on this point. The reason the questions keep coming up is that what you have said today is clearly challenged by what you have said in the past, or statements that have gone out in your name in the past, and what people like Andy Wigmore have said and what other employees at Cambridge Analytica have said in the past as well. We are now being asked to believe that the version of reality that was portrayed at the end of 2015 and 2016 is false, and the current statement is that there was no work of any kind done by either Cambridge Analytica or any associates during the referendum. They are at such odds it is not unreasonable that these questions keep coming up.
Alexander Nix
You are looking at that in isolation. As I said before, that press release went out in error. After it went out, we were very quick to go to the press and to correct it and to say to them, “This was a mistake. For the record, we are not doing any work. We have not been retained or contracted by any of these organisations”. We consistently put this message out over a two-year period. One press release you are referring to was instantly corrected, and we have been consistent in our messaging ever since, so I do not think your line of inquiry is entirely fair.
Chair
It is an article, not a press release, in your name, and it is still on the website of the organisation that published it, in your name. It has not been taken down.
Alexander Nix
That is out of our control, clearly.
Chair
You could have made a request to them.
Alexander Nix
We have made several requests to leading newspaper publications to retract statements that we have been involved with this. We have told news outlets, and we have put out our own press releases, but unfortunately we are not always successful in these entreaties.
Chair
It is normal for companies, when they are pitching for work—and from what you said it sounded like you were in the process of pitching for work for Leave.EU even if it did not come about. Probably a fair interpretation of the article we have been discussing is that you anticipated that you were going to be hired to do some work for them and that did not happen. What sort of work was done in order to pitch? Normally you go out and see prospective clients and you pitch to them and show them what you can do and the value you could add if you were hired.
Alexander Nix
That is exactly right. We have a political division. It is not uncommon for us to go and speak to political parties. Indeed, in this country I think I have spoken with every political party—or at least been approached by Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, SNP, Conservatives—on how we might be able to help them with their campaigns, various different campaigns, and to present our services, talk about our track record, our extensive 27-year history in managing election campaigns around the world, the technologies that we have developed to help campaigning and make it more efficient and then to talk about how our services might be most relevant to the clients that we are seeking to assist. I think that is pretty common practice.
Chair
I used to work in the advertising industry many years ago, part of the “Mad Men” style mass messaging industry that you say is now dead. What was normal there is that you would produce draft campaigns. You would say, “If you hired us, these are some of the advertisements that we would run for you.” Given that what you do is for many people, and probably for many of your clients, quite a new area of activity, do you create demonstrations, saying, “This is a sample of the sorts of work we would do for you based on our understanding of this issue and the understanding of your audience. Here are some examples of the work we would do if we were hired”?
Alexander Nix
Unlike the “Mad Men” days of advertising where it is creative-led, so you can draw on the imagination to come up with these sorts of examples, our communications are rooted in data and in science. As a result, in order to produce these things there is considerably more time and effort and work involved and we also need access to the appropriate datasets. It would be almost impossible for us to provide a client with a meaningful demonstration of what we might be able to do for them unless we have access to their data and have spent a lot of time modelling. More often—I would say that this is always is the case—we will simply show them work from other projects that we have worked on, to give them an understanding of the sort of work that we might be able to deliver to them.
Chair
In your discussions with Leave.EU, did they say that they had a dataset that they could make available to you in order to assist targeting in that campaign?
Alexander Nix
I am not sure that they did have a huge dataset or any dataset. I would have to revert to you on that. I think the idea was that we would help them go out and capture their data for them.
Ian C. Lucas
I have a quotation in front of me, dated 8 February 2017, from Bloomberg Businessweek: “We did undertake some work with Leave.eu, but it’s been significantly over-reported”. Are you saying that that is not correct, you never said that?
Alexander Nix
What I am saying is that the work we undertook was exploring a business relationship together.
Ian C. Lucas
You explored a business relationship but you did not begin a business relationship?
Alexander Nix
That is correct, sir.
Ian C. Lucas
Do you know who Arron Banks is?
Alexander Nix
I do know who Arron Banks is.
Ian C. Lucas
Have you read this book?
Alexander Nix
I know I have not.
Ian C. Lucas
It is called The Bad Boys of Brexit and it was sent to me by Arron Banks. Do you have a copy in your office?
Alexander Nix
That is correct. I was given a copy as well.
Ian C. Lucas
Can I suggest you read it, Mr Nix, because on 22 October 2015, according to this book, Mr Bank says, “We have hired Cambridge Analytica, an American company that uses ‘big data and advanced psychographics’ to influence people”. Are you saying that is incorrect?
Alexander Nix
I am saying that is incorrect.
Ian C. Lucas
Were you aware of that statement?
Alexander Nix
I saw the statement in the book.
Ian C. Lucas
You said you had not read it.
Alexander Nix
I have not read the book. I have seen the pages relevant to Cambridge Analytica.
Ian C. Lucas
You are aware of that statement.
Alexander Nix
Yes, I am aware of that statement.
Ian C. Lucas
Do you think that improves the business reputation of Cambridge Analytica?
Alexander Nix
Unfortunately, that is something that is out of our control. We have spoken to Mr Banks about this statement, and we spoke to Mr Wigmore about some of the statements that he made. We told them that we disagreed with them and that they were not true. I believe that they retracted some of their statements. The book came out, and it was already published by time I knew that that statement was going to be included in it. There was very little that I could do at the time to change that.
Ian C. Lucas
You could have sued, couldn’t you? You could have sued if it was damaging to the reputation of Cambridge Analytica.
Alexander Nix
I could have but I did not think that was adequate use of time and resources.
Ian C. Lucas
What he says is not true?
Alexander Nix
That is not true.
Ian C. Lucas
He is a liar.
Alexander Nix
It is not true.
Ian C. Lucas
He not only says that he used Cambridge Analytica; he said, specifically, that he hired you.
Alexander Nix
That is not true.
Ian C. Lucas
There are no financial payments from Leave.EU to Cambridge Analytica or any of associates?
Alexander Nix
Let me be absolutely crystal clear about this. I do not know how many ways I can say this. We did not work for Leave.EU. We have not undertaken any paid or unpaid work for them, okay? There is nothing else I can add to that that is going to clarify that statement in any more detail.
Ian C. Lucas
Mr Nix, I am sorry, but I am going to quote back to you what you said, which is, “We did undertake some work with Leave.EU”. It is in the quotation, and you have just said exactly the opposite. Which is true?
Alexander Nix
I was using the word “work” to mean that we met with them to discuss an opportunity. That is working. Unfortunately, having meetings, even if they do not lead anywhere, is still work but it does not entail the sort of relationship that you are trying to suggest existed between their organisation and our company.
Ian C. Lucas
Would you disclose your bank statements to show that no payments have been made from Leave.EU to Cambridge Analytica?
Alexander Nix
Yes, I would. I would be pleased to do that.
Ian C. Lucas
I would be very grateful if you would send those to the Committee so that we can check them.
Simon Hart
Why are you so desperate to distance yourself from Leave.EU?
Alexander Nix
I am not. I am desperate to make sure that the facts of the matter are crystal clear, because that is the purpose of this inquiry, although I thought the purpose of this inquiry was that I could help inform the Committee on how data and targeting are used in communications.
Chair
Absolutely, and believe me we do want to come on to that. It is just that because you raised this in your letter to us we feel this is something we have to bottom out with you.
Simon Hart
Keep going. You were just getting to the end of that.
Alexander Nix
I was simply saying that we were trying to establish the facts.
Simon Hart
You suggested that the work that was involved was around preparatory discussions that might or might not have led to some form of contract. As a way of expanding on the answers you gave to Mr Lucas, what went wrong? Have you any idea why you did not get the job? Have you any idea why Arron Banks is apparently so determined to argue that you did? I do not understand how something so simple could become so complicated.
Alexander Nix
Deals fall down or transactions fall down for all manner of reasons. It could be price, or it could be personalities.
Simon Hart
What was it in this instance?
Alexander Nix
There simply was not the appetite to move forward.
Simon Hart
By you or by them?
Alexander Nix
I think by both parties. We did not feel that the marriage value of Cambridge Analytica working with Leave.EU, and clearly vice versa, was going to bear a fruitful and successful relationship.
Simon Hart
Yet it would seem that Leave.EU are, according to you, making claims now that suggested that that relationship did exist. Why, if there was not the will go forward and if there was not the will to enter into any sort of contract, do you think that they are misrepresenting the truth or, as you put it, commenting inaccurately?
Alexander Nix
I cannot possibly speculate on Arron Banks or Andy Wigmore or anyone else’s motivations. That would be an unfair question.
Simon Hart
A final point on this, and I think we will come back to the data element. There is a sense of irony in the way you seem to have found yourself to be the victims of misinformation being peddled online, which is arguably one of the accusations that is made about your company since you assist people in playing to the fears of vulnerable sections of the electorate in order to alter their voting plans. Do you set a moral compass anywhere in the manner in which you advise clients on vulnerable-voter sections in order to try to move them from one position to another? Do you see that as a positive contribution to society or do you just say, “They are paying the bills, therefore we will provide whatever it is they want”? Where does the social responsibility sit in all this?
Alexander Nix
I think that is another entirely unfair question that stems from a total misunderstanding about what it is that we are trying to do and how we help our clients. We are trying to use data and technology to allow campaigns to engage with voters in a more informed and relevant way. We are trying to make sure that voters receive messages on the issues and policies that they care most about, and we are trying to make sure that they are not bombarded with irrelevant materials. That can only be good. That can only be good for politics, it can only be good for democracy and it can be good in the wider realms of communication and advertising.
Simon Hart
It is not an unfair question to simply report the fact that some people consider the manner in which the data is used for electoral purposes is quite subliminal. It is arguably manipulative. I am simply asking for comment; I am not expressing a view myself. Quite a lot of political parties wish they could afford your services, I suspect, but they do not. I am simply asking whether there is any element of this that causes you concern. If you are trying to nudge—we were all watching the presentation you made yesterday, where you are trying to help people move from one voting position to another. It is not anything that is particularly drastic; it is just moving a couple of notches on the dial. Do you have any comments about whether it is unusual when you see a political party using the advice that you have given perhaps to alarm certain sections of the voting community into taking a position on the basis of what, in the old-fashioned term, would be subliminal advertising? Is that an unfair accusation?
Alexander Nix
Let’s start by establishing the fact that the use of big data and predictive analytics in political campaigns was something that was really championed by Obama’s campaign in 2008. They were the ones who made the significant advances in what is known now as micro-targeting—the use of data to start to look at the electorate as very small groups of people, hopefully, ideally as individuals as opposed to homogeneous masses, and to start to serve them most relevant messages. Again in 2012, the Democrats pioneered the use of addressable advertising technology in order to improve the way that they use this data to target people as individuals. As Mr Collins well knows, they have been using these sorts of techniques in the realm of advertising to personalise advertising for many years—decades even—as they seek to build relationships between brands and their consumers such that you do not get blanketed with generic messaging but everything becomes more relevant to you. That is an entire industry that is moving in this direction. It is not Cambridge Analytica. All we have simply done is look at the industry—the advertising industry—and at what is going on in the political industry, and we have taken the best practices and in a very short of time we have replicated them and, I would like to say, improved on some of these techniques and methodologies and served them up to a different political party in order to help them have an equal chance of competing in a free and fair democracy. I think part of the issue is that our candidate is somewhat polarising and so people see the work that we did in a negative light, and they refuse to accept the fact that Clinton’s machine was twice the size or three times of anything that we were doing for Trump. She had hundreds of data scientists and digital practitioners working for her. They were using very similar techniques, and they were targeting the audience in a very similar way, yet they do not come under the limelight and they do not get the scrutiny that we get simply because of the candidate involved. I think if you look at the industry and you say to yourself, “Is it good for politics that you can make communications more relevant, that you can start to run a national campaign that involves millions or tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of voters and you can start to treat that campaign as you would a small mayoral election or a local election in the UK and you can start to speak to press releases about very local concerns that are relevant to them?” Whether it is speeding cameras or regulation of parking permits or whatever it is—things that matter as opposed to blanket messaging—that has to be good to make politics more personal, more individualised and more engaging.
Simon Hart
Last question, and I should know the answer to this: were you involved in the 2017 election here?
Alexander Nix
No.
Simon Hart
2015?
Alexander Nix
As a rule of thumb, we do not involve ourselves in politics in the UK.
Chair
You said as a rule of thumb, but have you?
Alexander Nix
I have been with the company for about 14 years and I have never worked on a campaign in the UK, simply because, as a predominantly British campaign, we think it would be complex and possibly divisive to ask our employees and staff to support a particular political party in the country that they reside in.
Chair
Following up, you took umbrage at one of Simon’s questions about playing on people’s fears, but you gave a presentation about your work for the Ted Cruz campaign where you demonstrated that, based on the psychological profile of the audience, you might use an advertisement that played on a woman’s fear of being attacked in her own home to support the gun lobby. You might say that techniques like that are used by other people, but is that not a good example of the sort of campaign that Mr Hart was referring to?
Alexander Nix
Both sides used fear of spending and fear of economic exclusion as arguments for staying and remaining in Europe. I think presenting a fact that is underpinned by an emotion is not fearmongering. If you believe that yourself, it is very sensible. I think there is an argument to say that, in the particular instance you are talking about, there are people who look to the second amendment for self-protection. In fact, I would say there are quite a lot of people who fall into that bucket.
Chair
In that example there that you gave, fear was the emotion that you were playing on.
Alexander Nix
You are looking at the drivers that are going to influence the decision making.
Chair
In that case, the driver that was selected in that example for that decision maker was fear.
Alexander Nix
The fear of being unable to protect yourself.
Chair
The answer to that question is yes?
Alexander Nix
Yes, in that case.
Christian Matheson
Who is Brittany Kaiser?
Alexander Nix
Brittany Kaiser is an employee of Cambridge Analytica.
Christian Matheson
Is she still an employee?
Alexander Nix
As of three years, I believe—three or four years.
Christian Matheson
Is she still an employee?
Alexander Nix
She is still an employee.
Christian Matheson
She spoke, representing Cambridge Analytica, at a panel on the launch of Leave.EU, did she not?
Alexander Nix
I believe so.
Christian Matheson
Representing Cambridge Analytica.
Alexander Nix
Representing our proposed involvement as a company that was going to support Leave.EU.
Christian Matheson
She said at the time that, “The most important part of this referendum is appealing to first time and apathetic voters”.
Alexander Nix
Yes.
Christian Matheson
We have had the press release put out by the junior press officer—that was scotched straight away—but your involvement with Leave.EU continued up until the very launch and her speaking at that launch.
Alexander Nix
She was not speaking as a consultant to Leave.EU, she was speaking as a representative of Cambridge that was seeking to do some work for Leave.EU.
Christian Matheson
Did she get paid for being on that panel?
Alexander Nix
No, she did not.
Christian Matheson
We had the tweet from 29 November, which again was quickly being scotched by Andy Wigmore, but a couple of months later, on 10 February 2016, you were quoted in Campaign magazine as saying, “Recently Cambridge Analytica has teamed up with Leave.EU… to help them better understand and communicate with UK voters. We have already helped supercharge Leave.EU’s social media campaign”. I know you are unhappy with the line of questioning, but it is yet another piece of evidence, is it not, Mr Nix, that is contradictory to the statement that you have given in your letter to the Chairman?
Alexander Nix
I think it is the same piece of evidence that has already been brought up, so rather than go round the houses and have exactly the same conversation that we had 20 minutes ago, we have probably addressed this one.
Christian Matheson
My fear is that there are several individual pieces of contradictory evidence that provide a weight to each other.
Alexander Nix
No, there are two pieces of evidence that suggested an association, and we have addressed them both.
Paul Farrelly
I want to try to close this opening line of questioning in my own mind, because I fear that I am hearing the English language changing in my ears as this session has gone on. You firstly described that you were not working for someone, but by “work” you meant that you had meetings about working for someone, which to my mind does not count as working for someone, so that rather confused me. We have two sets of characters: you and Mr Banks. I use the book as a coffee mat in my office, because we were all sent unsolicited copies of it during the election. Mr Banks is saying, “Hey, we are hiring Cambridge Analytica”, and you are wanting to be Cambridge Analytica working with Leave.EU, so you are both going around professing love for each other and your intention to get hitched. Then you say there was no marriage value in this. What did you mean by that?
Alexander Nix
That we did not get hitched, to use your metaphor. To use your metaphor, we dated each other, we had a couple of dinners but we did not get married. Again, how can I spell this out to you? It is pretty obvious.
Paul Farrelly
I am continuing your metaphor. I do not know what a marriage value is, so perhaps you could help me. There was no marriage value in it for you. What do you mean?
Alexander Nix
The idea that when two parties come together, the sum of the relationship is better than the individuals staying on their own.
Paul Farrelly
I am still confused as to why your relationship broke down.
Alexander Nix
I am sure, as experienced businesspeople, you understand that there are often situations where you engage in conversations about working together with clients and they do not lead to a relationship being formed. Unfortunately, this is the nature of business.
Paul Farrelly
Could you spell it out? Did they not think you could deliver or were they not prepared to pay the rate that you wanted? Could you be a little bit clearer?
Alexander Nix
I cannot be more clear because I cannot recall. This was four years ago or three years ago. It was one meeting three years ago that did not lead to business. We do dozens of meetings every day and some of them lead to contracts and some of them do not, so I cannot be more clear. All I know is that we met some representatives from Leave.EU, we had some discussions, but no business was taken forward.
Paul Farrelly
It also led to a presence on a launch platform for something that is pretty seminal in the recent history of this country, but your memory is not very clear.
Alexander Nix
At the time we were preoccupied with some fairly important work in the United States and other countries as well.
Chair
Mr Nix, you are very clear in saying that Cambridge Analytica received no payment for any work relating to the referendum. Is that also the case for SCL, your parent company?
Alexander Nix
It is not our parent company, but that is also the case, yes.
Rebecca Pow
I want to look at the system that you used—I think you might describe it as a trait-profiling system, the OCEAN system—and at how you gather data and what you include. Could you very briefly explain the OCEAN method to us?
Alexander Nix
Obviously, depending on which territory you are operating in, there are different means to gather data depending on the legislative environment available. In a country such as the United States, we are able to commercially acquire large datasets on citizens across the United States—on adults across the United States—that comprise of consumer and lifestyle data points. This could include anything from their hobbies to what cars they drive to what magazines they read, what media they consume, what transactions they make in shops and so forth. These data are provided by data aggregators as well as by the big brands themselves, such as supermarkets and other retailers. We are able to match these data with first-party research, being large, quantitative research instruments, not dissimilar to a poll. We can go out and ask audiences about their preferences, their preference for a particular purchases—whether they prefer an automobile over another one—or indeed we can also start to probe questions about personality and other drivers that might be relevant to understanding their behaviour and purchasing decisions.
Rebecca Pow
I think the stated commercial aim of the SCL Group said that you then collate all this information to micro-target people with all your analysis in order to influence their long-term behaviour. Can you give an example or a couple of examples of where this has been very successful?
Alexander Nix
Let me try to route this into something that is a bit more relatable. If you were an automotive company and you were seeking to advertise your product to an audience, just knowing whether that audience was more interested in the engine and performance of the vehicle, as opposed to the safety features or the boot space or anything else, is going to be very relevant to how you communicate with them. That is an example of one or two data points. If you can expand on that and start to really understand what it is that you, as an individual, care about in purchasing decisions—purchasing a car for instance—you can start to tailor the product to the individual and start to tailor the communication in a similar way. Then you can talk about, in the case of somebody who cares about the performance of a vehicle, how it handles and its metrics for speeding up and braking and torque and all those other things.
Rebecca Pow
I assume you are gathering all this data on the British population as well.
Alexander Nix
Obviously there is a different set of regulations in the EU as opposed to the US. The EU is an opt-in data culture as opposed to an opt-out data culture, as is the case in the United States, so the datasets that we have in the UK, for instance, are not the same as those that we have in the US.
Rebecca Pow
Does any of the data come from Facebook? I have read that you have said that within so many “likes” you can almost predict what somebody is going to think about something, or indeed possibly how somebody might vote, and that you might know more about them than, say, their partner or spouse or work colleague does within a few simple steps. Is that right?
Alexander Nix
I have read a similar article. It was not published by us or written by us, I should say. It was written by an academic active in the space, so I cannot comment on whether that is true or not. We do not work with Facebook data, and we do not have Facebook data. We do use Facebook as a platform to advertise, as do all brands and most agencies, or all agencies, I should say. We use Facebook as a means to gather data. We roll out surveys on Facebook that the public can engage with if they elect to.
Rebecca Pow
But you can put your micro-targeted messages, as you were saying, on Facebook as advertisements to try to persuade people or nudge them in one direction or another.
Alexander Nix
We are platform-agnostic. We will match our offline data segments with any platform out there. Facebook obviously is an extremely prevalent platform and has an incredible global reach so it is a go-to platform of choice for many or most agencies, but if there are other more-targeted platforms, we would use those.
Rebecca Pow
We had a gentleman before our panel called David Carroll, who was an associate professor of media design in the States. He said that there is no indication of where Cambridge Analytica obtained its data for any of your rankings. Do you not feel people ought to know where you are getting your data from and then what you are doing with it, how you are sharing it, whether you are processing it or even whether people ought to have a right to be able to delete it?
Alexander Nix
In the United Kingdom, individuals, as governed by EU law and data protection regulation, are entitled to make a subject access requests and, as they will be able to under GDPR with all companies, they will be able to ask for their data and have that data removed from those companies’ databases. We are fully complicit with the law and the legislation that is currently in place.
Rebecca Pow
Do you see yourselves as being an all-powerful presence with all the knowledge and data that you have and that it is not surprising people are trying to find out whether you are doing anything perhaps you should not do in the way of influencing elections? You do seem to be in a position where, with all your knowledge and your powerful data, you could do that.
Alexander Nix
It is very flattering that you suggest that people might see us as having these incredible powers. What we are doing is no different from what the advertising industry at large is doing across the commercial space. We are a small technology company that is trying to develop best-in-practice technologies. We are not a political agency, and we do not have a political ideology. We work on as many elections each year that are left of centre as are right of centre. We only work for mainstream political parties; we do not work for fringe actors. We only work in free and fair democracies. The science of political campaigning goes back hundreds of years and what we are doing is a very natural evolution to what has been done before, and what is being done by many other people as well.
Rebecca Pow
Doesn’t the very fact that you are working on political campaigns mean that you must be influencing them, given that your remit is to influence people’s long-term behaviour?
Alexander Nix
All campaign management consultancies or agencies are there to help their customers or their clients, as a good advertising agency is there to help the brands that it represents. We are there to make sure that our candidates are able to communicate with the electorate in the most relevant and effective way. That is what campaign consultancies do, as most of the people in this room should well know because of their involvement in politics.
Ian C. Lucas
Do you share data between, for example, SCL and Cambridge Analytica?
Alexander Nix
SCL is a very different company to Cambridge Analytica. It is a different company that has different employees who sit in a different office. It has a different board and a different board of advisers. It has different datasets, and it has different clients. The short answer is no. The only relationship between Cambridge Analytica and SCL is some shareholders. Apart from that, they are completely separate entities.
Ian C. Lucas
There would never be circumstances when you would transfer data from SCL to Cambridge Analytica?
Alexander Nix
We could transfer data from Cambridge Analytica to SCL, but because SCL is a company that operates in the government and defence space, it acts as company that has secret clearance—X-list accreditation in the UK—so we could not transfer data the other way.
Ian C. Lucas
You could transfer data from Cambridge Analytica to SCL, you said?
Alexander Nix
Certain data, yes.
Ian C. Lucas
Are there any individuals who work for both organisations?
Alexander Nix
There are individuals like myself who, at a high level, sit on a board of both organisations, but there are no employees who work for both organisations.
Ian C. Lucas
Is it your understanding that if I lawfully give one of those businesses information about me, another one of those businesses can use that information?
Alexander Nix
I said certain data. There are certain data that we can go out and commercially—I am talking about the United States, by the way.
Ian C. Lucas
I am talking about the UK.
Alexander Nix
In the UK that is not our practice.
Ian C. Lucas
It is not your practice. Is that because it is unlawful?
Alexander Nix
We do not share data. No, it is simply because there is a different legislative environment here.
Ian C. Lucas
So it is because it is unlawful.
Alexander Nix
In America, we can go out and acquire data. In the UK, we can still work with data, but as a data processor not as data controller. We can work with client data. I am sure you are familiar with the distinction between the two. We never own these data; we are simply processing these data on behalf of our clients.
Christian Matheson
Very briefly on that—going back to the answer you gave to Mr Lucas about not having any common employees, just common shareholders—the registered representative with the Information Commissioner for Cambridge Analytica is Jordanna Zetter. Does that sound right?
Alexander Nix
Sorry, the registered representative for—
Christian Matheson
With the Information Commissioner.
Alexander Nix
Right.
Christian Matheson
Is it not the case that she is also publicly named as the Operations Executive for SCL Elections Ltd and Cambridge Analytica?
Alexander Nix
Jordanna has been acting as the liaison in an administrative capacity for helping the ICO with some of their inquiries into data and data protection. We have a data compliance team who are undertaking the work. Her role is more about co-ordination and administration.
Christian Matheson
You would stand by the position that there are no common employees or employees who spend time working for both?
Alexander Nix
Jordanna’s employment is with Cambridge Analytica.
Ian C. Lucas
Can I come in on that? That is a very important role, full stop, but particularly in an analytics company—the person in charge who is lawfully responsible to the Information Commissioner.
Alexander Nix
There is a misunderstanding. She is not the person in charge. Ultimately, the CEO is in charge and our data compliance team is in charge. She is simply the liaison who passes messages between the two bodies.
Christian Matheson
What is the difference between owning the data and processing it?
Alexander Nix
In the UK, if we were to undertake work for a big corporate, their data would be owned by them and they would always be the data controller. They would have control and responsibility for their data. They could bring us in to work on their data, but we would never take receipt of that data and we would never own that data. We would simply come in and perform analytic function on that data. Their data would remain their data.
Rebecca Pow
This is just a small point related to data. I believe I asked you whether you gathered the data from Facebook and whether you were using all that information. I think you said you did some surveys. Could you expand a bit more on what those surveys are, what you are asking people and how you are gathering the data? Do you keep that data on surveys carried out on Facebook or does Facebook keep it?
Alexander Nix
I cannot speak to Facebook, but as far as I am aware the process works a bit like an opinion survey. If I want to find out how many people prefer red cars or yellow cars, I can post that question on Facebook and people can agree. They can opt in to answer a survey and they give their consent and they say, “I prefer a yellow car” and then we can collect that data. That is no different to running a telephone poll or a digital poll or a mail poll or any other form of poll. It is just a platform that allows you to engage with communities.
Rebecca Pow
Are they a big part of your data-gathering service?
Alexander Nix
When we work for brands, whether it is in the UK or in the US or elsewhere, we often feel the need to probe their customers and find out what they think about particular products or services. We might use Facebook as a means to engage with the general public to gather this data.
Simon Hart
Let me ask a very quick question on the Facebook survey opt-in option that you were describing. If you are asking somebody what kind of car they prefer and they opt in, does that facilitate access to other data that may be held by Facebook, which is irrelevant to car colour, or is it only the data you collect on car colour that is relevant? Nothing else that is part of the data held by Facebook would be available to you.
Alexander Nix
You are absolutely right—no other data. As far as I am aware, Facebook does not share any of its data. It is what is known as a walled garden, which keep its data—
Simon Hart
People are not in any way accidently giving you consent to access data other than that that you specifically asked for.
Alexander Nix
That is correct. People are not giving us consent and Facebook does not have a mechanism that allows third parties such as us to access its data on its customers.
Simon Hart
Even with its customers’ consent.
Alexander Nix
Even with its customers’ consent.
Chair
I have taken one of your surveys. It was found through your website. I think it was a profiling survey that is linked to the OCEAN model. The incentive to take the survey is to understand more about your psychological profile. When you complete the survey—this is where I bailed out of the process—it invites you to complete the survey and get the information back you want by logging in with your Facebook log-in at the end of the process. If someone does that, what data are they allowing you to share from their Facebook process? What is the purpose of the Facebook log-in at the end of the survey?
Alexander Nix
Logging in with Facebook is a fairly common practice in the digital realm. It simply saves you the time of putting in your name and e-mail address and so forth, such that we can then send you that report on the survey that you have just taken.
Chair
Does that give you the right to access any other data points from my Facebook profile?
Alexander Nix
No, absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Paul Farrelly
I just want to clear up two things—I am sure we want to pursue the use of Facebook. You mentioned that SCL Group, or whichever of the companies it is—you can perhaps be more precise—has X-list accreditation for work with Government and defence. Can you explain that? I have not come across an X list before. Forgive my ignorance.
Alexander Nix
Not at all. I am sure you are not ignorant at all. SCL is a behavioural communications agency that was set up specifically to service the government space. We do an awful lot of work in the UK, but it is principally in the US, working with Government Departments such as the DOD, State, Pentagon and so forth. We are trying to use an understanding of group audience behaviour to address often hostile actions. Specifically, that includes programmes of counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation. We are looking at how we can use an understanding of audiences to address problems in the drug trade, in children and women trafficking, programmes of social change, Government information programmes, a huge number of health programmes—trying to understand how we can encourage people to live more healthy lives.
Paul Farrelly
Is this all in the US, not in the UK?
Alexander Nix
It is in the US, the UK and globally. Obviously, the US is a larger market for this kind of work.
Paul Farrelly
Are all the various SCL entities involved in this?
Alexander Nix
That is correct.
Paul Farrelly
What does SCL stand for?
Alexander Nix
Historically, going back some 14 or 15 years, it stood for Strategic Communication Laboratories. It has been abbreviated now.
Paul Farrelly
One more loose end. To Rebecca Pow’s question about Facebook, where she said that with a certain number of likes you could know someone better than this, this or this, you attributed that to some professor somewhere.
Alexander Nix
I do not think I attributed to anyone by name.
Paul Farrelly
No, you said it was something that had been written by a professor.
Alexander Nix
I think I said by an academic, but that is my understanding, yes.
Paul Farrelly
You said that yourself in a speech to the fabulously titled Online Marketing Rockstars conference in 2017. You made those claims about Cambridge Analytica’s capability.
Alexander Nix
Could you read that out, please?
Paul Farrelly
You claimed, “With 10 Facebook likes, Cambridge Analytica can predict an individual’s behaviour better than their work colleague might. They only need 70 to make”—that is you—“behavioural predictions better than a friend, 150 to understand a voter better than their parents”. With 300 likes you claimed your organisation can, “predict a person’s actions, thoughts and feelings better than their spouse”.
Alexander Nix
Those are not my words. I am familiar with that text. That was the text that your colleague Rebecca was quoting from but those were not Cambridge’s words. That was a statement that was made by an academic who spent a number of years, I believe at Stanford University, looking into this area. That was his work, and that was his statement. I do not know why that has been attributed to Cambridge.
Paul Farrelly
You have not made those claims on Cambridge Analytica—
Alexander Nix
That is not my statement, period.
Paul Farrelly
Did you quote it?
Alexander Nix
No, I did not quote it. I have never memorised those statistics in order to include them in a quotation.
Ian C. Lucas
Is Cambridge Analytica a Facebook developer?
Alexander Nix
No.
Ian C. Lucas
What is your relationship with Facebook?
Alexander Nix
We are a client of Facebook. We purchase advertising through Facebook, as every other digital agency does.
Chair
Mr Nix, I would like to clarify one or two things that you have said, and I have one or two things about Facebook before we move on to other topics. You were asked earlier about Jordanna Zetter’s dual role working with SCL and with Cambridge Analytica. Was that dual role created in response to the inquiries from the Information Commissioner or was she working on that dual role before those inquiries were made to your company?
Alexander Nix
As far as I am aware—and I would be pleased to circle back to the Committee to confirm this—Jordanna Zetter is employed by our office in London to work for Cambridge Analytica. She has no formal role with SCL Group, which is based out of Arlington, Virginia, in the United States. I think, as far as I am aware, she has never even visited those offices and has no relationship with them. She was simply asked to help with the ICO’s inquiries into data and data protection. She kindly agreed to act as a liaison in that respect. Should they have any questions—I am not sure that they do or did, but again I would need to confirm that for you—for SCL in the United States, she would pass them on and be the conduit of that, simply because they do not have a relationship with those people. It is purely an administrative role. She is not a senior member of staff.
Chair
If you were able to confirm that in writing we would be grateful for that, and also whether that liaison role was in place before the Information Commissioner’s investigation commenced. Moving on to Facebook, in response to other questions you drew a distinction between being a data controller and a data processor. Could you explain a little bit more to us about that distinction between those two roles?
Alexander Nix
Again, this is certainly not my area of expertise. I run the leadership team, not the data compliance team. My understanding of how this works in the United Kingdom is that the brands that we work with remain the controllers of their own data. That is, if you are a large retail brand and you have collected a lot of data on consumers, you own and are responsible for that data and for looking after it and securitising it and protecting it and all the regulation that governs it. These brands are allowed to engage with companies and agencies such as Cambridge Analytica in order to help them to process or model this data. We perform an analytic function as a subcontractor or as a contractor on this data. We do that work for them, often on their own servers within their own data ecosystem and then we leave. We do not control that data, and we do not have a copy of that data.
Chair
You said in your letter to me that, “Cambridge Analytica does not gather” data from Facebook.
Alexander Nix
From Facebook?
Chair
Yes.
Alexander Nix
That is correct.
Chair
The actual quote from the letter is: “On 8 February 2018 Mr Matheson implied that Cambridge Analytica ‘gathers data from users on Facebook.’ Cambridge Analytica does not gather such data.” But from what you said you do, do you not, through the surveys?
Alexander Nix
Yes, I think I can see what has happened here. What we were trying to say in our letter is that we do not gather Facebook data from Facebook users. We can use Facebook as an instrument to go out and run large-scale surveys of the users, but we do not gather Facebook data.
Chair
By that do you mean that you do not have access to data that is owned by Facebook?
Alexander Nix
Exactly.
Chair
You acquire data from Facebook users through them engaging with surveys and other things.
Alexander Nix
Exactly right.
Chair
Is your engagement, either directly or through any associate companies you may have, just through the placing of surveys or are there other tools or games or things that are on Facebook that you use to gather data from Facebook users?
Alexander Nix
No, simply through surveys.
Chair
We referenced earlier the presentation you gave at the Concordia Conference in 2016 about your work for the Ted Cruz campaign. Were you hired to work for Donald Trump on the basis of your work with Ted Cruz? I imagine you could not have been working for two candidates in the same race, so did you start—
Alexander Nix
Actually we were working for two candidates in the primaries. We were working for Dr Ben Carson’s campaign and for Ted Cruz’s campaign, and we were seeking to work for Donald Trump’s campaign throughout the primaries as well but the Trump campaign did not wish to engage with us other than on an exclusive basis. We had two clients who we were well established with and we were not willing to give those up, so we said to the Trump campaign that, “In the event that you win the primary let’s reopen the discussions that we started almost a year beforehand”.
Chair
The work that you did for the Trump campaign was obviously after Ted Cruz’s campaign had ended. Is that right?
Alexander Nix
Immediately after Trump won the primary—Cruz coming to second to him—we reopened a dialogue with the Trump campaign about how we could take all the technology that we developed, largely for the Cruz campaign, and pivot it across to Trump to give him the same or similar capability.
Chair
Is that what you did?
Alexander Nix
That is exactly what we did.
Chair
In your presentation you said that the Cruz campaign relied on a sort of tripartite strategy where the campaigns were based on understanding behavioural communications, which is where the OCEAN survey and psychological profiling comes in, data analytics—data from multiple sources where it is available—and then ad data to place the messaging. Is that the same approach you used for Donald Trump’s campaign?
Alexander Nix
We would have liked it to have been, but it was not the same approach, simply because when we joined the Trump campaign we had about five and a half months before polling to build or re-engender the entire analytics capability that Clinton’s team had and that we had been giving to Cruz. We simply did not have the time and resources to be able to go into the same depth of services that we provided to the Cruz campaign, which we had been working on for very many more months. It was a very extended and protracted programme. We made the decision to focus on the data and analytics elements of the campaign and the tech, digital and data-driven TV elements of the campaign. We did not have time to bake in or to incorporate the behavioural approach, the psychographics that we had used on the Cruz campaign.
Chair
Why not? You said that the psychographic information is based on surveys you have done, which means you believe you have an accurate model for understanding every voter in America. Presumably that database could be migrated to support other campaigns as well. It is not data specific to a particular campaign, is it? It is generic profiling of people.
Alexander Nix
Yes, but then you have to take these data and contextualise them into the campaign that you are working on. Everything that we did for Cruz in that regard was centric around Cruz. We would have to then replicate that for Trump and that would have just been the most enormous piece of work.
Chair
In that case, I don’t understand why you were hired. You have made it quite clear in your presentation on your work for Ted Cruz that your model is based on the combination of these different elements. The ad data is about message targeting—the media placement bit of it—but the smart bit is the merging of psychological profiling and data analytics. In fact, what you do here in this country is based on that too. That seems to be your USP. Why would none of that psychological profiling have been used to augment the data in the Trump campaign when that is the way you work?
Alexander Nix
As I said before, the reason it was not used was because we simply did not have the time and resources to include it. If we had had that opportunity, we would have. We did not and we are just trying to be transparent about that fact. To say that the smart bit is simply that would be doing an injustice to the 40 or so PhD data scientists who spent 100 hours a week for five months crunching data and numbers in order to develop the very accurate and insightful models that they did for the Trump campaign.
Chair
The way you sold yourself and what your company did was based on the combination of these elements together. If I was someone in the room that day—the way these conferences work is that you are effectively there pitching yourself and your company in the hope of winning new business and new clients on the back of it. You have a very clear model and it is quite interesting that one of the three supports of that stall has been taken away to go and work on another high profile campaign. It seems very strange.
Alexander Nix
You can only provide a client, whether it is political or brand, with the services that you are able to deliver within the constraints of the project timelines that you are presented with. You are absolutely correct that, in an ideal world, not only would we have liked to have delivered the services that I spoke about in that presentation but many other services that we have developed across the engagement space, as digital and television in particular, but we simply did not have time. Unfortunately, unlike running a brand campaign where you are selling automotives or toothpaste or something where you don’t have the same time pressures, we have a finite amount of time. You have to choose which technologies in your arsenal are going to be the most important and that can be deployed most effectively, and we made a decision.
Chair
In that presentation I think there is a slide on data analytics where you describe that data is sourced from multiple sources and any marketing company will know that there are companies that specialise in data analytics to analyse consumer behaviour. I think on your chart you had logos of different companies. I think Experian was one and Nielsen was one. You had Facebook on there as well. Again, just to confirm on this, is that because you are highlighting the fact that you can gather data from Facebook?
Alexander Nix
Collect data through Facebook—that is exactly right, yes.
Chair
Does any of your data comes from Global Science Research company?
Alexander Nix
GSR?
Chair
Yes.
Alexander Nix
We had a relationship with GSR. They did some research for us back in 2014. That research proved to be fruitless and so the answer is no.
Chair
They have not supplied you with data or information?
Alexander Nix
No.
Chair
Your datasets are not based with information you have received from them?
Alexander Nix
No.
Chair
At all?
Alexander Nix
At all.
Ian C. Lucas
Can I go back to an answer I think you gave earlier? I just want you to confirm something. Did you say that you had never worked on any political campaigns in the UK?
Alexander Nix
I said that I personally had not been involved in any political campaigns in the UK. I have been with the company for about 14 years and, as far as I am aware, in the last 14 years we have never worked on any campaigns in the UK.
Ian C. Lucas
That is Cambridge Analytica and—
Alexander Nix
Cambridge Analytica was only formed in 2012, so this would have been a company that I worked for prior to forming Cambridge Analytica, which was called SCL.
Ian C. Lucas
By political campaigns, that means general elections. What about for candidate elections for political parties within the UK?
Alexander Nix
Again, as far as I am aware, since I have been in the company we have never worked—we don’t seek to work in the UK, for the reasons I discussed earlier. We don’t see the UK as a commercial market of interest for SCL or—
Ian C. Lucas
That really puzzles me because there are lots of other businesses that might do work for different political organisations within the advertising sector or within the information sector. Why is it that you are so involved in politics in the US but you are not involved in the UK?
Alexander Nix
I think I have addressed this already but let me explain it again for you. First, we only entered the US market in 2012. We have been running election campaigns since 1994. We take on a number of national elections every year. That could be three, four, five, six, seven elections across the world in every single year for prime ministers and presidents. That could be in Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa or beyond. We entered the US market relatively recently. We saw a commercial opportunity to bring some of the technologies that we had developed to that market, particularly to help with Republican politics because they were losing the tech arms race, if you like, to the Democrats and that is where the opportunity existed. We have no more interest in servicing the US political market than we do helping political parties in Africa or Asia. Specifically in regards to the UK, as I said before, originally we were a British company with most of our staff based in the UK, and we felt that it would be unfair on our staff for senior management to make a decision about which political party the company supported, especially if that was at odds with the political views of our employees, so we did not want to put them in that awkward position.
Ian C. Lucas
That is very thoughtful, because lots of other businesses don’t do that in the UK. Could you tell me who your clients are in the UK?
Alexander Nix
We work for brands in the UK. Although the current impression is that we are a political consultancy, I have tried to explain to this Committee that we are not a political consultancy. We are a technology-driven marketing firm, and the majority of our business is in the brand space. We work for big and small brands, trying to help them market and sell their products and services to consumers around the world. We also have a government and defence division, which I am very proud of and which does enormously important work in saving lives all over the world in campaigns about issues that really matter. We have a political division, but our political division is only, say, 20% or 25% of our entire business.
Ian C. Lucas
Given your thoughtful approach with your employees about not getting involved in political campaigns, what led you to start to discuss with Leave.EU about getting involved in probably the most contentious political campaign in British history?
Alexander Nix
It was only an exploratory discussion and, as I have said to the Committee already, we have these sorts of discussions with all parties in the UK. Without exception, every single party has approached us, and every single party has asked about our services. We have had these discussions. Some of them have been more protracted than others and we have never engaged with anyone—not on my watch—but it does not mean we are not interested to understand more about their needs and concerns, to understand more about the technology they are embracing and to see what the market is like. This was an example of that. In the end the decision was made not to move forward.
Ian C. Lucas
You are not a partisan political outfit.
Alexander Nix
I don’t think we would be particularly good at our job if we were partisan. We try to be objective. We try to walk into a country and service our clients with the best, most cutting edge technology and methodologies available for communications and campaigning.
Ian C. Lucas
Why was Steve Bannon on your board?
Alexander Nix
Steve Bannon was on our board to help a British company to understand a new market that it was trying to penetrate. I can’t think of many people who would be better to help a company enter a market, particularly into the Republican space, than somebody who had extensive experience of the commercial and business landscape through his time at Goldman Sachs and the like, who understood the media landscape through other experiences, and who also had a very attuned political knowledge.
Ian C. Lucas
I can’t think of anyone who is a more partisan political figure.
Alexander Nix
I can’t speak to your—
Ian C. Lucas
Okay, but it does not sit easily with the fact that you are non-partisan in one country but you are massively partisan in another.
Alexander Nix
In the United States, the practice is not to switch sides. You either work for the Republicans or you work for the Democrats. You don’t do one election for one and then change sides. That is how the convention is. In other countries, we always give our previous clients first bite and first sight of our services, but if for any reason they do not wish to engage with us, we are at liberty to go and work for opposition parties and sell our services to them.
Chair
You might be interested to know, Mr Nix, that various people are watching the evidence session. It is being broadcast and people are tweeting about it. Julian Assange has tweeted about it, sharing a link to the session where people can watch it. Has Cambridge Analytica or any of its associate companies ever worked on campaigns to distribute information that has been sourced from WikiLeaks?
Alexander Nix
We have no relationship with WikiLeaks. We have never spoken to anyone at WikiLeaks. We have never done any business with WikiLeaks. We have no relationship with them, period.
Chair
That was not quite the question I asked, which was whether you had ever been involved in advising on or organising campaigns to distribute information that has been sourced from WikiLeaks.
Alexander Nix
We have never been involved in organising or advising on campaigns that distribute data or information from WikiLeaks.
Chair
Arron Banks has also been following the session and tweeting about it. He has invited himself to come and give evidence to the Committee, which we might well take him up on—Mr Lucas suggested that earlier on. If Mr Banks is still watching, if he wants to keep his diary free over the next couple of weeks, we may well be in touch. What he says in his tweet about your negotiations—this potential marriage or courtship that failed—is that, “CA wanted a fee of £1m to start work & then said they would raise £6m in the states. We declined the offer because it was illegal.” Is what he is saying correct?
Alexander Nix
Absolutely incorrect.
Chair
That is the second time he has lied, according to you.
Alexander Nix
Mr Banks is at liberty to say whatever he likes, but I don’t have to agree with it.
Chair
What he has said in that message is totally untrue?
Alexander Nix
That is totally untrue.
Simon Hart
I have a quick question on the attitude to your staff and not wishing to put them in a difficult position when it comes to choosing campaigns. Do you apply the same principle to which brands you choose to represent? Do your staff have a say? They may feel more comfortable with some brands than others. Do you consult them over that?
Alexander Nix
We always give our staff a choice about which projects they would like to work on. If anyone for any reason does not feel comfortable working on a particular brand, we are happy to offer them the opportunity to work on a different brand. If, for instance—and I keep using the example—you don’t believe that the automotive industry is necessarily good for the environment, you do not have to work on it. You can go and work on selling bicycles.
Simon Hart
Likewise, UK employees working on the Trump campaign could also choose—
Alexander Nix
All our employees have that opportunity.
Chair
I wanted to ask you something about data that I meant to ask you about earlier. You gather data from various sources, including from Facebook through the survey tools you have on the platform. Do you retain that data and information unless you receive a request to hand it back or to destroy it?
Alexander Nix
In a country like the United States, we retain that data. Some of that data is purchased and some of that data is licensed, so then you need to either return it or delete it or refresh it.
Chair
When you talk about data being purchased, who are the people you have purchased it from in that case?
Alexander Nix
It is possible to go out and purchase commercially available datasets. There are people who make a living from selling data in the United States.
Chair
Could you give us an example of a company?
Alexander Nix
This would be people who collect data off their customers, for instance.
Chair
Given that Facebook is such a major platform, would that include customer Facebook data that has been gathered by other people that you can buy?
Alexander Nix
I don’t know. My understanding—you would have to speak to Facebook and I know you have spoken to Facebook—is that they do not share any of their data, and it would be bad for their business model, I assume, if they did.