Thread by @rowlsmanthorpe

EXCLUSIVE:

The Liberal Democrats are profiling every voter in the country by scoring their political preferences out of 100

This includes which party they will vote for in the next election and whether they are a Remainer or Leaver
news.sky.com/story/the-lib-…

There at least 42 categories, although we only know the identity of 37

They include:
- whether someone voted Leave or Remain in the 2016 referendum
- how they'd vote if there was a second referendum
- likelihood of voting for any of the major parties
news.sky.com/story/the-lib-…

There's more.

The Liberal Democrats use software which estimates the age and first language of voters by analysing their names

The name Rowland Manthorpe, for instance, is categorised as "older: probably older" 🤔
news.sky.com/story/the-lib-…

Should be emphasised: this kind of scoring system is commonly used by political parties in the UK and the US, so the Lib Dems aren't unique here

But Subject Access Requests give us a chance to see exactly how a major party operates
news.sky.com/story/the-lib-…

Of course, just because something's common doesn't mean it's right.

I have to say, I felt *really* creeped out when I saw how I'd been judged

Here's @mattr3 from @OpenRightsGroup, who I worked with to get the data

There's also a legal question. Even though the political parties have a pretty large carve-out from data protection law, @PrivacyMatters says this level of profiling could still raise questions for the ICO

The Lib Dems disagree. Here's their statement 👇

For what it's worth, they were by far the best party when it came to replying to SARs. If only others (*cough* Labour *cough*) were even half as responsive

TV version of the story is here. Thanks as ever to the fantastic team at Sky who helped me make it, especially @jamesmatthewsky

If you've got a subject access request back from a political organisation, then please let me know! DMs are open