Cambridge Analytica is already in deep shit because they stole personal data from at least 50 million Facebook users (that we know of) and their top executives were caught on camera confessing to international crimes, but things can always get worse.
Cambridge has officially denied any involvement in the Brexit campaign during interviews with the public and members of British parliament, but the company's former director of business development says the company conducted analysis of behalf of the UK Independence Party (Ukip).
More specifically, she says the company consulted with Leave.EU over a period of weeks for free as part of an effort to secure a long-term paid contract.
From The Guardian:
In an exclusive interview, Brittany Kaiser, Cambridge Analytica’s business development director until two weeks ago, said the work with Leave.EU involved analysis of data provided by Ukip.
Emails and other documents, seen by the Guardian, show the company was worried about whether it could speak openly about the “interesting findings” and the origins of the data that had been analysed. It decided against doing so.
Kaiser, 30, said the work took a number of weeks and involved “at least six or seven meetings” with senior officials from Leave.EU, which was co-founded by Arron Banks, a Ukip donor. She said the work took place as part of an effort to secure formal business with the campaign group.
Cambridge CEO Alexander Nix told members of parliament last month that the company conducted analysis, but denied that it was actually used in the campaign.
Of course, Nix said that before he was caught on camera boasting that his company is proficient at entrapping politicians with money and girls. There's no reason to believe anything he has ever said in public.
The company's former business director also told The Guardian that the data provided by Ukip came from Facebook.
She said both organisations offered to share proprietary data with Cambridge Analytica’s lead scientist, David Wilkinson.
He requested access to Facebook pages, “subscriber, donation and local group data”, email engagement and call centre records. It is not clear what information they had – or what was passed over.
Kaiser told The Guardian that she personally briefed members of Leave.EU on the results of the Cambridge analysis.
It's possible that information was never used, but I'm not sure if I believe that. If these executives lied about working together in the first place, what else have they lied about?