Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Predecessor | Cambridge Analytica [2] [3] |
Founded | February 2018 [1] [4] [2] |
Headquarters | San Antonio, Texas [1] [3] [5] |
Key people | |
Parent | CloudCommerce, Inc. [1] [10] [8] [9] [2] |
Website | DataPropria.com |
Data Propria is a company formed in 2018. [1] [2] [4] It is managed by Cambridge Analytica's former head of product, Matt Oczkowski, and employs at least three other former Cambridge Analytica staffers [11] [8] including Cambridge Analytica's former chief data scientist, [8] David Wilkinson. [4] [6] It reportedly worked on the 2020 Donald Trump presidential campaign. [8]
[We're] doing the president's work for 2020.
— Matt Oczkowski quoted by Biesecker et al., Trump 2020 Working With ex-Cambridge Analytica Staffers ( Associated Press , 2018) [8]
Oczkowski acknowledges there will be plenty of "overlap" with Cambridge Analytica. Like that company, Data Propria will focus on behavioral data science, which is essentially the practice of using data to target people with ads and marketing based on, as Oczkowski puts it, people's "motivational behavioral triggers."
In May 2018, Bruce Rauner, the Governor of Illinois, was reported to be using Data Propria in his re-election campaign. [3]
Circa May–June 2018, Data Propria was reported to be electioneering for Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign. [8] [2] [3] [12] [13] [14] [15] [10] Company president Matt Oczkowski and parent company part-owner Brad Parscale denied the accuracy of these reports, despite having claimed, in front of reporters, that Data Propria was working on that campaign. [8] [6] An anonymous source additionally confirmed Data Propria's involvement with the campaign. [8] [6]
In June 2018, Oczkowski and Parscale confirmed that Data Propria had signed a contract with the Republican Party's governing body (the RNC), to assist the party in the 2018 midterm US elections. [8]
In June 2018, Data Propria was sent an open letter by U.S. Representatives Michael F. Doyle, Frank Pallone, and Jan Schakowsky. [16] [17] The letter asked Data Propria to confirm the provenance of its datasets, and especially whether they contain material improperly acquired from Facebook by Aleksandr Kogan or Cambridge Analytica. [16] [17]
William Stepien is an American political consultant who served as the campaign manager for Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign beginning in July of that year. A member of the Republican Party, he was the White House Director of Political Affairs in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2018.
SCL Group was a private British behavioural research and strategic communication company that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving its subsidiaries Cambridge Analytica and Crow Business Solutions MENA. It was founded in 1990 by Nigel Oakes, who served as its CEO. The company described itself as a "global election management agency". The company's leaders and owners had close ties to the Conservative Party, the British royal family, British military, United States Department of Defense and NATO and its investors included some of the largest donors to the Conservative Party.
Cambridge Analytica Ltd. (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intelligence company and self-described "global election management agency" SCL Group by long-time SCL executives Nigel Oakes, Alexander Nix and Alexander Oakes, with Nix as CEO. The well-connected founders had contact with, among others, the British Conservative Party, royal family, and military. The firm maintained offices in London, New York City, and Washington, D.C. The company closed operations in 2018 in the course of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, although firms related to both Cambridge Analytica and its parent firm SCL still exist.
Social media played an important role in shaping the course of events leading up to, during, and after the 2016 United States presidential election. It enabled people to have a greater interaction with the political climate, controversies, and news surrounding the candidates. Unlike traditional news platforms, such as newspapers, radio, and magazines, social media gave people the ability to comment below a candidate's advertisement, news surrounding the candidates, or articles regarding the policy of the candidates. It also allowed people to formulate their own opinions on public forums and sites and allowed for greater interaction among voters. The accessibility of information online enabled more voters to educate themselves on candidates' positions on issues, which in turn enabled them to form unique opinions on candidates and vote on those opinions, ultimately impacting the election's outcome.
Rebekah Mercer is an American heiress, Republican political donor, and director of the Mercer Family Foundation.
Katherine Marie Walsh is an American Republican political operative who served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Implementation in the Donald Trump administration. She also worked with the Trump-aligned 501(c)(4) advocacy organization America First Policies.
Brad Parscale is an American digital consultant and political advisor who served as the senior adviser for data and digital operations for Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. He previously served as the digital media director for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and as campaign manager for Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign from February 2018 to July 2020, being replaced by Bill Stepien. In September 2020, he stepped away from his company and the Trump campaign.
"Project Alamo" was a database of voter information created for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and an associated fundraising and political advertising operation on social media platforms. It was organized by the Giles-Parscale firm in San Antonio, Texas. The campaign paid Giles-Parscale as much as $94 million for fundraising, political advertising, and digital media services, including the creation of Trump's website. A new database of voter information named "Project Alamo" was at the heart of Giles-Parscale's efforts, allowing highly targeted advertising on social media platforms. The advertising campaigns added to the database over time, driving more effective targeting. The scale of the fundraising and political advertising campaigns on social media was massive, with hundreds of thousands of targeted ads being delivered daily. Project Alamo has been credited as an important factor in Trump's 2016 victory.
Alexander James Ashburner Nix is a British businessman, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica and a former director of the Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) Group, a behavioural research and strategic communications consultancy, leading its elections division. Cambridge Analytica and its parent SCL were involved in psychological warfare operations for the British military and involved in influencing hundreds of elections globally; Cambridge Analytica helped Leave.EU with its Brexit campaign, according to both Leave.EU and Cambridge Analytica staff. The company was also engaged by the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns during the 2016 US presidential election. The company also ran Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta's campaign.
Christopher Wylie is a British data consultant having taken British citizenship on 24 January 2024. He is noted as the whistleblower who released a cache of documents to The Guardian he obtained while he worked at Cambridge Analytica. This prompted the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which triggered multiple government investigations and raised wider concerns about privacy, the unchecked power of Big Tech, and Western democracy's vulnerability to disinformation. Wylie was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018. He appeared in the 2019 documentary The Great Hack. He is the head of insight and emerging technologies at H&M.
Nigel John Oakes is a British businessman, and the founder and CEO of Behavioural Dynamics Institute and SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica and her sister AggregateIQ ; the companies became known to a wider audience as a result of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving the misuse of data. From the early 1990s Oakes' companies, operating under succession of names, were involved in influencing elections in developing countries, and with the onset of the War on Terror they were also contracted by the British military. Oakes first became known as the boyfriend of Lady Helen Windsor in the 1980s.
In the 2010s, personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected without their consent by British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, predominantly to be used for political advertising.
AggregateIQ (AIQ) previously known as SCL Canada is a Canadian political consultancy and technology company, based in Victoria, British Columbia.
CloudCommerce, Inc., is a company based in the United States which provides digital marketing and analytics solutions. The company was traded OTC Pink as CLWD, but has since been renamed to AiAdvertising, trading as AiAd.
Auspex International is a company founded in London in 2018, by former Cambridge Analytica staff members Mark Turnbull and Ahmad Al Khatib. It is one of several companies founded by people formerly affiliated with Cambridge Analytica following its downfall in the aftermath of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving the misuse of data.
The Great Hack is a 2019 documentary film about the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, produced and directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, both previous documentary Academy Award nominees. The film's music was composed by Emmy-nominated film composer Gil Talmi. The Great Hack premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in the Documentary Premieres section and was released by Netflix on July 24, 2019.
Social media was used extensively in the 2020 United States presidential election. Both incumbent president Donald Trump and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden's campaigns employed digital-first advertising strategies, prioritizing digital advertising over print advertising in the wake of the pandemic. Trump had previously utilized his Twitter account to reach his voters and make announcements, both during and after the 2016 election. The Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden also made use of social media networks to express his views and opinions on important events such as the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the protests following the murder of George Floyd, and the controversial appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Brittany Nicole Kaiser is the former business development director for Cambridge Analytica, which collapsed after details of its misuse of Facebook data became public. Cambridge Analytica potentially impacted voting in the UK Brexit referendum and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kaiser testified about her involvement in the work of Cambridge Analytica before a select committee of the UK Parliament and to the Mueller investigation.
Alexander Waddington Oakes is a British businessman, and the co-founder and an executive of Behavioural Dynamics Institute and SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica and her sister AggregateIQ; the companies became known to a wider audience as a result of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving the misuse of data. From the early 1990s Oakes' companies, operating under succession of names, were involved in influencing elections in developing countries, and with the onset of the War on Terror they were also contracted by the British military.
America First Policies is an organization created following the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017 to promote the America First policy agenda of his administration. It was founded by Trump campaign people including Nick Ayers, Rick Gates, and Brad Parscale.