Information & Ethics Committee on May 29th, 2018

[Christopher Wylie]

Target audience analysis, or TAA, is the starting point for information operations in a military context. It's something SCL specialized in. If you take a step back for a moment and look at information operations as a military endeavour, it's part of what's called multi-dimensional battle space, where you as the military client are trying to seek out dominance in all of those spaces, whether it's land, sea, airspace, or indeed, information. TAA is the starting point where you look for the information space around your target and identify weaknesses or vulnerabilities in that information space, whether to deny your opponent information or to provide them with information that is conducive to your operational objective.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Part of the tail of this big dog that we've grabbed is the illegal end, so we just see these guys as dodgy operators who are out to do dodgy things, yet they get hired by NATO to do dodgy things on behalf of the Canadian people. Now they've morphed into Emerdata, which seems to be all the same players, but they also include financial links to Blackwater, the mercenary group, and they've worked with Black Cube, Israeli black operators.

How are we to navigate a space where a large corporate interest can do completely illegal things in one context and then be brought in by governments to do favours for them in others?

[Christopher Wylie]

Information operations are not always nefarious or a bad thing. If you think of a conflict—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You said that this is a company that's gone around the world and undermined democratic elections, and they don't care whether their work is compliant, because they like to win. This is a corporate culture we're dealing with.

[Christopher Wylie]

Yes. Sorry, it was a broader point on, for example, projects that Canada funds. Just because Canada funds an IO project does not mean that Canada is intending to undermine democracy around the world.

When you look at counter-extremism, if you seek to confuse or interfere with the operations or communications of an extremist group or a terrorist group, that is ultimately a denial of their agency. But in that context, it may be appropriate.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I get that.

The question for me is legislation. If we have companies that engage in nefarious, illegal activities, but we can say that the enemy of my enemy is now my friend, how do we legislate companies that seem to be so willing to break the law, but then still get government contracts because it's useful to have them do work elsewhere?

This is something we need to be talking about, but we haven't really dealt with it. I'm asking your opinion from having worked inside with them.

[Christopher Wylie]

When you take a step back, Canadians often—and rightly so—think of Canada as a country that goes around the world and promotes democracy. In doing so, you are strengthening civic institutions, and you are helping people participate.

When you look at the actions of Canadian companies, for example AIQ, they are doing the exact opposite of that. Canada as a country does not know about that activity because it does not require, for example, proactive registration of any kind of activity in a foreign election.

One of the things that I've been speaking to American members of Congress about is that in the same way that you have to register foreign agents who are lobbying or conducting work in the United States, you should also have a registry of companies that are doing work outside in other elections or in electoral contacts to allow oversight, whether that is government oversight or civic society oversight of the operations of companies in other elections.

I don't know if the Canadian government was aware that SCL also had an elections division. One of the things that could be done is better due diligence about what the other projects and activities are that the company being contracted by the Canadian government is doing in other places.

The question is simply, what other projects have you done in the past two years or are you currently working on and are any of those political?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you.

Next up for seven minutes is Mr. Erskine-Smith.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much.

It's great that we've been working in a non-partisan way, although today Mr. Kent seems to be more partisan than usual. I look forward to him inviting Hamish Marshall to our committee, who said that psychographic profiling is incredibly useful and not for the faint of heart.

Mr. Wylie, we've identified illegal conduct, I think, or potentially illegal conduct in relation to Brexit and spending. We've talked about AIQ's role, and they knew at the time that any overspending of a 7-million pound limit would have caused problems for Vote Leave, yet they funnelled money to other organizations. We know from testimony at the U.K. committee, from what I understand, that the same custom audiences were uploaded for both the BeLeave campaigns and the Vote Leave campaigns, yet AIQ had told us that no, the information was provided by the respective campaigns, which quite clearly is now a lie. That's potentially illegal conduct.

We have potentially illegal conduct or at least contrary to PIPEDA when Facebook shared, overshared information, potentially even private messages to Kogan, and Kogan then potentially improperly or illegally passed that on to Cambridge Analytica.

Are there other examples of potentially illegal conduct this committee should be seized with or be aware of?

[Christopher Wylie]

Is it in relation to Cambridge Analytica or just generally?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

To your knowledge, I mean, we're talking 600,000 Canadians who have been affected by just the Facebook to Kogan transfer, and that's not any other app. AIQ had an app on Facebook itself, and we don't know how much information was gleaned from that.

If we identify the players in this story, AIQ, SCL, and Cambridge Analytica, and you've worked for a fairly long period of time for Cambridge Analytica in a significant role as research director, from what you have seen, is there other illegal conduct in this story that we should be aware of?

[Christopher Wylie]

There may be, but I'm also aware that there are currently investigations going on, in which imparting that information in a political forum may interfere with a particular investigation. If you'd like to discuss that in a non-public forum then perhaps we could have a discussion.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Perhaps, Chair, we can discuss this after the second round but potentially go in camera at some point.

We talk about profiling and political ads or companies advertised to in a targeted way. I think you've been right to highlight the difference between ethical and unethical uses of data and that it's perfectly acceptable to target some messages to certain people who may be interested in receiving that message. We know political parties do this all the time. In the last election the Conservative Party targeted Punjabi and Chinese communities to say that our Prime Minister wanted to open up neighbourhood brothels and sell marijuana to kids, so we know this happens.

The issue is scale and reach. When we talk about what the Internet's done and the understanding of the Facebook example of 87 million profiles being improperly shared, it's just an incredible scale that we haven't yet had to grapple with when it comes to targeting. When we talk about custom audiences, we can now not just reach communities through particular papers or particular interests —say this person likes animals or this person likes baseball— but we can now actually upload a custom audience and specifically get at these people.

So when we look at answers to this problem, I've read your article, “This is how Facebook can save itself”, which begins with, “Rather than #DeleteFacebook, we need to #FixFacebook”, and you talked about transparency. Perhaps you could speak to some solutions that this committee ought to be looking at, given your expertise.

[Christopher Wylie]

The first thing I would say is that I am not on a crusade against Facebook. I think there's a lot of really amazing things that Facebook does. The only thing I would say is that although a lot of attention has been put on Facebook, there are other social media companies that collect just as much data, or in some cases more data.

When we look at how society is moving forward, this is a one-directional movement, right? Every single year, we are integrating smart devices that are connected to algorithms, that are connected to databases, in new and multifarious aspects of our lives. People are putting Alexa into their homes. Their fridges can connect to their phones. We might have self-driving cars at some point in the future. With the advent of things like facial recognition or smart buildings, physical spaces at some point may be adapting themselves to your presence in them.

There are a lot of benefits to that, but there are a lot of risks. One of the things that I think should be considered is more rules on transparency for targeting. Currently, if you as a politician go out and do a constituency event, the media might show up, there's an audience, your opponent might show up, and if you tell an untruth you can be called out on that, right? Or, if you say something and there's a different perspective, there is some kind of accountability mechanism there. That is the essence of the public forum.

The problem with targeting is that rather than standing in that public forum, you are going to each individual voter and whispering something in their ear. Now, in many cases what you're whispering is something you would be happy to say in that public forum. In some cases, it may not be.

Currently—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

How narrow is the custom audience? To that point about whispering in one person's ear, custom audiences can be drilled down to what I can upload...a custom audience of one?

[Christopher Wylie]

Facebook limits the custom audience to 1,000—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay.

[Christopher Wylie]

—but you could have 1,000 custom audiences of 1,000 to make up a million, and you have 1,000 different messages to a million people.

The point that I was going to make was that rather than say targeting is outright a bad thing and we shouldn't have it, there are really positive use cases, particularly with motivating under-represented groups in democracies to show up and vote. Simply requiring platforms like Facebook or Google or Twitter to publish every single ad that is being sent out on their platform would allow journalists, governments, parties, whomever, to look at what ads are on this platform and, in addition to that, the actual targeting specification for those adverts.

Currently, we do not know what goes on Facebook, on Google, on Twitter, in terms of targeted advertising, right? A simple solution to that would be to require those platforms to simply report what happens so there can be public scrutiny. In that way, you avoid necessarily creating a number of rules to restrict what you can and can't say on a platform, or having some cumbersome regulator. That would allow civil society and parties to scrutinize messaging in the same way they would if you were standing in that public forum. However, it would not prevent the really positive use cases of targeting, in particular engaging people who are under-represented in politics right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

As a heads-up, we have bells at 10:56 a.m., and there's a vote at 11:26 a.m. That gives us another half an hour or so. We should be able to get back, but we're going to try to get through as much as we can.

Mr. Gourde, for five minutes.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wylie, I think it's noble to use technology to get out the vote. The problem arises when people are targeted so that they all vote for the same thing.

Why target certain people on Facebook, instead of just placing general ads, as is done in television, radio, newspapers, and other media?

[Christopher Wylie]

It's because young people, for example, are highly mobile, and the address on the electoral register is not necessarily where they live. They don't necessarily listen to the radio, and there is something to be said for sending messages to voters that contain a policy or issue that they actually care about.

If I'm in Nova Scotia, I may not be entirely concerned with wheat and farming policies in Saskatchewan, because what affects me is fisheries or something else. Targeting doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. You can have targeting that is positive for democracy because you are speaking to voters about something they actually care about, and indeed in a medium they actually see and engage with.

We have a declining turnout, and this is not just a problem in Canada. It's a problem all over the place, and it's because the media landscape has completely changed. Part of the job of political parties in maintaining our democratic process is to adapt to that new environment and to develop ways of engaging voters in that new environment. Digital has to be part of that. If we do not have digital communications in an increasingly digitized society, we are going to dramatically affect the results of elections towards people who aren't online, which is a vastly shrinking population.

We shouldn't necessarily treat social media or online communication as a bad thing. Just in the same way that a knife can be a murder weapon or create a Michelin star meal, it's a tool. The appropriate thing is to look at what is reasonable for this tool, work out how to use it, and create boundaries for it.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Wylie, have you put a number, percentage-wise, on how much this technology increases voter turnout? Is it 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, or 6% more people who vote?

[Christopher Wylie]

I can't give you a precise figure, but I recall seeing results that ranged from 2% to 7% in terms of uplift, which is not insignificant. If parties actually focused more on online engagement, they could actually increase turnout overall, but it's the job of all parties to do that for all of their own supporters and voters.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Pollsters are having a harder and harder time predicting elections. In the last 10 days of an election campaign, major changes in how people are likely to vote can be observed. In fact, that's what we are seeing in Ontario, right now.

In the last 10 days of an election campaign, can these technologies have a huge influence by getting people who would not normally vote out to the polls?

[Christopher Wylie]

Pollsters have a hard time predicting, because they don't actually do forecasting. All they do is report the results of 1,000 people and what they said. Very little analysis actually goes into it in terms of creating forecasting algorithms or anything prospective. That's one of the reasons polling has become drastically inaccurate in a lot of places.

In terms of the impacts of targeting, it absolutely could affect the results of an election 10 days out. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but more parties and political actors should be looking at that problem and at ways they can engage people on digital platforms. More turnout is a good thing.