Thread by @LFDodds

NEW from me: A cache of leaked Labour documents lays bare the scale and sophistication of the fearsome data targeting apparatus with which the party will fight the next election – and privacy experts believe some its activities may be illegal.
telegraph.co.uk/technology/201…

These documents are instruction manuals for Labour's voter database and social media advertising suite, both run by the data broker Experian. They lay out, approachably and in detail, how Labour operatives can microtarget voters in ways the public rarely glimpses clearly.

The manuals show how Labour buys data from Experian to profe every voter automatically into categories like "Dependent Greys" and "Childcare Squeeze", as well as estimating their job status, housing tenure and "life stage". All this gets combined with voter rolls and canvass data

The manuals show how Labour buys data from Experian to profe every voter automatically into categories like "Dependent Greys" and "Childcare Squeeze", as well as estimating their job status, housing tenure and "life stage". All this gets combined with voter rolls and canvass data

This latter function is made possible by a controversial practice called social media matching, by which data brokers can ferret out your Facebook account using other details that they hold - in this case just your name and address!

(See here some for my previous coverage of social media matching in British and American politics)
telegraph.co.uk/technology/201…

And here's the thing: according to the experts I consulted, a lot of this might well be illegal. The ICO is still investigating the data practices of 11 political parties, after warning in 2017 that many campaigning entities showed "a disturbing disregard for voters' privacy"

There's much more in the piece. But now I need to make one thing really clear:

Labour is NOT the only party that does stuff like this, and therefore it is not the only party that might be skating on this legal thin ice (experts framed it as endemic)

telegraph.co.uk/technology/201…

Labour's system appears to be special in its scale, depth, ease of use and the power which it puts in the hands of local campaigners pretty close to ground level. Even so, the issue of data brokers in politics extends far beyond one party.

To conclude, I want to give due credit to @rowlsmanthorpe, who got hold of some of the same documents I did and independently published his own report on them here, including some good detail on the Tories' use of Experian data!
news.sky.com/story/data-pro…

Rowland has been doing great reporting on British political parties' data practices, including how the Lib Dems are using bought data to tag voters with 42 different scores estimating likelihood of eg "voting Remain" & "being a pragmatic liberal"

news.sky.com/story/the-lib-…

Slowly but surely, using GDPR's transparency tools and the increased awareness of data among both public and political class, reporters and privacy researchers are cracking open the veil of secrecy which has hitherto prevented a clear view of British parties' data operations.

PS: Thanks very much to @RaviNa1k, @tonivitale, @mattr3, @privacyint and @KateDommett, who are quoted in this story, as well as to others who helped me understand the nature of these types of systems!