Evidence of meeting #113 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was know.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
There were different administrators depending on the account.
Do you mean the AggregateIQ account?
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
On the Facebook accounts for BeLeave and Vote Leave, who are the administrators?
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
We have advertisers who are administrators on different accounts. Sometimes it's me, sometimes Mr. Massingham. It depends.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Who was authorized to place ads on behalf of Vote Leave and BeLeave from AIQ?
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Facebook notes:
Our investigations to date have found there was one data file custom audience, one website custom audience, and one lookalike audience that were used to select targeting criteria for potential ads during this period by both the Vote Leave and BeLeave pages.
That suggest there were some convenient similarities, if not coordination, between the campaigns being run by the two.
Can you speak to that?
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
That's something you and I spoke about just briefly before the meeting. I actually addressed it during my opening statement.
When we created the account for BeLeave, initially one of our junior staff just copied one of the other campaign accounts that we created for Vote Leave, thinking it was the same campaign. They were quickly told that was not the case.
Those audiences were deleted. All of that stuff was deleted. They started again, but they used the same account.
That information was created, but it was never used, never shared. No one from BeLeave ever saw it. We provided all of that information, and a very detailed description to the DCMS committee.
As I've said, when I get back to the office, I'll provide it to you as well.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
I'm running out of time, so I have just one last question in this round.
Before the U.K. committee, they indicated that they have possession of internal emails that show senior AIQ staff discussing accessing the Kogan data from SCL and Cambridge Analytica servers for the Bolton PAC. Do you have any knowledge of that?
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I spoke about it there. The email that they're speaking about came from an SCL person asking me where the political CRM was. The information in that particular email is a survey that they were doing about issues unrelated to any personality or anything like that, and they were using a tool called Qualtrics to do normal surveys of people across America to get their general—
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
No. With respect to the Kogan data, in that particular conversation—and that's what I can speak to—they were speaking about a Qualtrics survey they were doing of some 6,000 or so people.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Okay. Thanks very much.
With that, we're going to Mr. Gourde for five minutes.
June 12th, 2018 / 9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Silvester, in light of everything that is happening at this time, do you intend to change your business model for the delivery of services in future, or are you going to keep things exactly the same?
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
We've already put into place new procedures, because there were some things that happened that were not the right way to do business with respect to our git repository, and so on. There are also changes that we'll have to make with respect to how we work with Facebook, because Facebook has changed the way they allow advertisers to do work. So yes, there are changes that we're making.
In addition, of course, we're doing a full investigation into that git repository access by Mr. Vickery, and I anticipate that when that concludes there may be additional things we'll need to do as a result. We've also learned that instead of informal policies, we need to formalize a lot of our policies in our conversations with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia. I imagine they're going to give us some formal recommendations in that respect, and of course we'll change our business practices with respect to that, and we've already started down that path.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
Under your previous business model, did your company pay for advertising on Facebook directly and then bill it to its electoral clients, or did it only provide consulting services about the placement of advertising, so that there were two different billings?
9:30 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
We've done both over time. We have advertised on Facebook for our client and then billed them, and we've provided advice to clients, who then do their own advertising; and we've directed their advertising and they've done it on their own pages and paid for it. It's happened both ways at different times.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
Did you make sure that everything that was billed to clients during election campaigns was declared in the Chief Electoral Officer's report, or was that not your responsibility?
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
I'm referring to the United Kingdom, but also to other countries, since you have clients around the world.
When you bill your clients for work done during an election campaign, you expect to see the services you provided in the electoral report, regardless of which campaign, as well as all of the billing done. Everything must be declared.
Did you check to see whether all of the work you did during the election campaigns was declared by the parties?
9:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
Certainly when we invoice, we understand that different clients have different reporting requirements. A lot of our campaigns, of course, were provided...in the U.S., those campaigns that I mentioned, in terms of the midterms or the presidential, were done through SCL, so SCL or companies they're working with show up in the reporting. But yes, in terms of Brexit, or here, or anywhere else, when we invoice, we fully expect that that's going to show up in public reporting. Sometimes we do check, but not always. If the Electoral Commission or any organization asks us for clarity about that, we're happy to provide it, as we've done in the past.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
A part of the work was done in the United Kingdom, and another part in Canada. Were there technical advantages to working from another country? When you worked by day in Canada, it was night in the United Kingdom. Was that to enable you to go faster? Or was it because the laws were not the same and that gave a certain legitimacy to the work?
9:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
I wouldn't say actual legitimacy or value, insofar as taxation might be different. I know in the U.K. we weren't subject to the VAT—the value-added tax—so that might have been an advantage to the client. I don't know if that was a decision that they undertook in terms of choosing us. With respect to some Canadian clients we've attempted to work with in the past, they've opted not to use us. They went with an American company vendor because there was an advantage to using the American company vendor for taxation reasons.
With respect to the 24-hour cycle, there's certainly an advantage to having people awake and working when other people aren't, but regardless of where we work, we'll structure our working hours to match up with what the client is doing. There are some advantages. There are also disadvantages.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
The money received for the services you provided during the campaigns usually came from the election campaigns. Was the money provided entirely by the election campaigns, or did it come from a third party?
9:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, AggregateIQ
The advertising we did on behalf of Vote Leave-BeLeave during Brexit came directly to us from either the campaign or as a donation from Vote Leave with respect to veterans or BeLeave. With respect to work we did for SCL for their clients, that money came through SCL. It just depends on the client. We have relationships with a number of companies that in turn use our services to provide it to their clients, or we also provide services directly. If it's direct, then we invoice directly, but if we're doing work through another company, then we will invoice that company, and that company will in turn invoice the client.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Thanks very much.
With that, we go to Mr. Picard for the next five minutes.