Wolfie Christl Profile picture
Aug 1, 2019 21 tweets 19 min read Read on X
This is weird.

Aristotle, a major political data company in the US who provided a 'nationwide enriched credit file' to Cambridge Analytica also runs a ID verification firm that utilizes 'identity data' on '3.4 billion citizens across the world', and a UK credit reference agency.
Has this ever been discussed or reported on?

According to NationBuilder, Aristotle provides e.g. data on 'over 190 million U.S. voters from 3,100 counties and political data from 157 nations':
nationbuilder.com/aristotlenews

Aristotle's subsidiary "Integrity":
integrity.aristotle.com/about/
The strange website of this UK credit reference and fraud prevention firm 'Aristotle International Europe Limited' (aristotleint.co.uk) says '(c) 2019 Integrity' and directly links to aristotle.com and integrity.aristotle.com.
Aristotle owned a '35-million-person database for the U.K., which was used by at least one candidate in London’s last mayoral race' already back in the mid-2000s: vanityfair.com/news/2007/12/a…

Btw. Recently, Aristotle has also been working in Kenya @pasternack: fastcompany.com/40450037/trump…
@pasternack And this is what Aristotle provided to Cambridge Analytica: a 'nationwide enriched credit file' with '400 data points for 220m individuals', according to an internal doc leaked by Brittany Kaiser.
@pasternack 1) Firms that collect/analyze/sell extensive personal information about voters shouldn't exist.

2) Data processing for ID verification, fraud prevention and credit reporting must be strictly regulated. Data must not be used for other purposes, especially not for voter profiling.
@pasternack Perhaps Aristotle's businesses are strictly separated and they do not use any personal data across voter profiling and risk analytics.

But I think the fact that they are mentioned as a credit data provider for political campaigning should be enough to start an EU investigation.
@pasternack Even more so if this is (still) true and they run the UK credit reference agency to gain access to the UK electoral register. Thanks @EinsteinsAttic!
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic With regards to their identity verification business they claim to cover all EU countries (and many more):
integrity.aristotle.com/global/
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic According to the privacy policy, they 'have access to databases provided by governments' and others containing personal data such as addresses, phone numbers, 'government-issued identification data, IP addresses, social network data' +sensitive blacklists: integrity.aristotle.com/privacy-policy/
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic They claim to use a 'comprehensive database of government-issued ID’s for citizens of 135 countries around the globe', a 'database covering over 3.4 billion citizens worldwide':
integrity.aristotle.com/solutions

I really hope Aristotle doesn't use *any* of this data for voter profiling.
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic Whoa, I missed this when I scanned that Vanity Fair piece before (vanityfair.com/news/2007/12/a…). According to this article, GOOGLE owned 27 percent (!) of Aristotle in 2007 (and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp 13.5 percent). Who owns Aristotle today?
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic This from Aristotle's website (aristotle.com/data/) seems to show an app that shows detailed personal information to canvassers, including name, age, party, vote history and even info such as '2nd Most Recent Lender Name' and '2nd Most Recent Mortgage Am[ount]'.

…wait what?
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic The only take I've seen by now that covers both Aristotle's ID and voter profiling stuff is this comment to the FTC ...oddly, it's about about an application for a COPPA safe harbor program (which was granted ultimately): ftc.gov/policy/public-…

…again, found by @EinsteinsAttic
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic Another one via @EinsteinsAttic - in 2018, the U.S. Federal Election Commission(FEC) found 'probable cause to believe' that Aristotle 'violated' the 'sale and use restriction' imposed on FEC data.

Don't know the current status of this investigation: fec.gov/files/legal/mu…
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic A project closely linked to Aristotle is Predictit, a political-gambling site aka prediction market. This seems to be illegal in the US (bloomberg.com/news/articles/…), so it claims to be an 'experimental project operated for academic purposes'. What about the data? /thx @MatthiasEberl
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic @MatthiasEberl Is this the backstory of why Aristotle provides both political tech and ID verification? First, software for political campaigns, then: "We were increasingly using the software to verify the identities of people making contributions to political campaigns" telegraph.co.uk/finance/commen…
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic @MatthiasEberl In a SEC filing from 2000, Aristotle stated:

"We collect and compile information in our databases that we use in connection with our campaign products and services and for our targeted advertising products and our age and identity authentication services" nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/f…
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic @MatthiasEberl …this doesn't sound like strict separation.

Also in the year 2000, "VeriSign has struck partnerships with data companies such as Equifax and Trans Union, which provide credit data, and Aristotle International, a provider of voter data" for auth purposes: dmnews.com/customer-exper…
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic @MatthiasEberl In 2000, Aristotle started to license UK voter records from a third party and warned in its SEC filing (nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/f…) that there is the risk that the license could be terminated.

In 2003, they incorporated this UK credit referencing agency:
@pasternack @EinsteinsAttic @MatthiasEberl Correction: I misread this paragraph in the Vanity Fair piece (vanityfair.com/news/2007/12/a…).

It was not Google but WR Hambrecht, which owned 27% of Aristotle in 2007 (+ helped with Google's IPO + invested in other data companies e.g. LexisNexis, Salesforce: crunchbase.com/organization/w…)

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More from @WolfieChristl

Feb 29
Some more findings from our investigation of LiveRamp's ID graph system (), which maintains identity records about entire populations in many countries, including name, address, email and phone, and aims to link these records with all kinds of digital IDs:crackedlabs.org/en/identity-su…
Identity data might seem boring, but if a company knows all kinds of identifying info about everyone, from home address to email to device IDs, it is in a powerful position to recognize persons and link profile data scattered across many databases, and this is what LiveRamp does.
LiveRamp aims to provide clients with the ability to recognize a person who left some digital trace in one context as the same person who later left some trace elsewhere.

It has built a sophisticated system to do this, no matter how comprehensive it can recognize the person.
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Nov 14, 2023
As part of our new report on RTB as a security threat and previously unreported, we reveal 'Patternz', a private mass surveillance system that harvests digital advertising data on behalf of 'national security agencies'.

5 billion user profiles, data from 87 adtech firms. Thread: Image
'Patternz' in the report by @johnnyryan and me published today:


Patternz is operated by a company based in Israel and/or Singapore. I came across it some time ago, received internal docs. Two docs are available online.

Some more details in this thread. iccl.ie/wp-content/upl…
Image
Here's how Patternz can be used to track and profile individuals, their location history, home address, interests, information about 'people nearby', 'co-workers' and even 'family members', according to information available online:

isasecurity.org/patternz
web.archive.org/web/2021062210…
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Read 30 tweets
Nov 6, 2023
, a 'social risk intelligence platform' that provides digital profiles about named individuals regarding financial strain, food insecurity, housing instability etc for healthcare purposes.

Incredibly intrusive, horrifying that this can exist in the US. sociallydetermined.com
Image
"It calculates risk scores for each risk domain for each person", according to the promotional video, and offers "clarity and granularity for the entire US".

Not redlining, though. They color it green. Image
Making decisions based on these metrics about individuals and groups seems to be highly questionable and irresponsible bs.

Safegraph, a shady location data firm, is among the data providers:
safegraph.com/customers/soci…
Read 6 tweets
Oct 16, 2023
Bazze, a US data broker that purchases smartphone location data from mobile apps and advertising firms, and sells to the US Dept of Defense, according to the WSJ (), openly promotes a commercial location mass surveillance system for 'government customers'. wsj.com/tech/cybersecu…
Image
I extracted information about mobile location data they claim to sell per country from their website:


Japan: 920m records, 5.5m devices
Brazil: 370m records, 6.3m devices
Australia: 280m records, 1.7m devices

...and data on people in 200 other countries. bazze.io/cdi
Image
explains that it does not 'collect or sell data from individuals within the United States, Canada, and European Economic Area countries'.

So, global commercial location data except US/Canada/Europe, for national security (and finance, as a side business). bazze.io

Image
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Read 19 tweets
Oct 13, 2023
New WSJ report found that 'Near', a consumer data broker based in India, Singapore and the US with an office in France, obtained massive location data via digital advertising firms like OpenX, Smaato and AdColony and sold it to US defense/intel agencies:
wsj.com/tech/cybersecu…
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Near's general counsel and chief privacy officer:

The US govt "gets our illegal EU data twice per day", a "massive illegal data dump".

"We sell geolocation data for which we do not have consent to do so", "we sell data outside the EU for which we do not have consent to do so" Image
If this isn't reason for EU data protection authorities to take urgent action than I don't know what is.
Read 18 tweets
Sep 22, 2023
Yesterday, I published a case study that examines enterprise software for process mining, workflow automation and algorithmic management.

I identified a list of mechanisms that involve personal data processing and can affect workers individually (right) or collectively (center). Image
I guess rarely anyone has ever examined this kind of software at such a level of detail, from a worker perspective.

The case study explores how employers can exploit worker data based on enterprise software docs. The chart is an excerpt from section 7:
crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/p…
The case study is largely based on an analysis of enterprise software docs from a single vendor and its partners, which has its limitations. It's the third in a series of case studies, which are part of a larger project that aims to map how employers use personal data on workers.
Read 10 tweets

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