Evidence of meeting #117 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 vote.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Michael MacPherson
Zackary Massingham  Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Bob Zimmer

I'll call the meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, meeting 118, and this is a study of the breach of personal information involving Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.

Today, we have back Zackary Massingham, Chief Executive Officer of AggregateIQ.

I'll turn it over to the clerk for a moment for the affirmation.

11 a.m.

The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Michael MacPherson

Good morning, Mr. Massingham.

The solemn affirmation is as follows, if you can repeat after me:

I—state your name—do solemnly, sincerely, and truly affirm and declare the taking of any oath is according to my religious belief unlawful. And I do also solemnly, sincerely and truly affirm and declare that the evidence I shall give on this examination shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

September 27th, 2018 / 11 a.m.

Zackary Massingham Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

I, Zack Massingham, do solemnly, truly, and sincerely affirm and declare the taking of any oath is according to my religious belief unlawful. And I do also solemnly, sincerely and truly affirm and declare that the evidence I shall give on this examination shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

11 a.m.

The Clerk

Thank you.

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Bob Zimmer

Thank you, Mr. Massingham.

Do you have opening comments? You have 10 minutes.

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Zackary Massingham

No; just thank you for inviting me back today.

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Bob Zimmer

The first question is from Mr. Saini, for seven minutes.

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Good morning, Mr. Massingham. Thank you very much for being here.

I'm going to go back to a question I had asked Mr. Silvester when he appeared here prior to the summer break. I asked him about querying data in the Ripon program that features an option for a disengagement target. Chris Vickery had uncovered evidence that in the Ripon voter querying data, there is an option for a disengagement target.

What do you understand the purpose of this value to be?

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Zackary Massingham

I'm sort of not familiar with that data that's there.

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

You're not familiar with...?

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Okay. You were not involved in any of the production of this programming or anything.

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Zackary Massingham

No. I'm not a software developer.

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Okay, but you would have understood how it worked, wouldn't you? As a co-owner of the company, you would have understood the product that you were selling. You may not have produced the product, but you would have understood what the value of the product was, wouldn't you?

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Zackary Massingham

I believe that what you're referring to there is one of SCL's scores. I'm not familiar with all their scores or any of the different things that were there. I think Jeff could probably speak to that better than I could.

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

When you produced the product, you never did a run-through of the product. You didn't understand how the product worked.

Since you were going to sell the product.... I mean, the first thing they teach you in business is that you have to understand your product to sell it. I don't understand how you wouldn't know this, especially if it's a value that was purposely put into a program.

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Zackary Massingham

Sir, SCL employed us for contract development on that. They defined what scores or information they wanted to present, and our team put that together for them.

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Okay, so you don't have any understanding of why they did that, or you didn't find it odd that they had a value for disengagement.

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Zackary Massingham

I wasn't aware that they even had a value for disengagement, sir.

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Okay.

Can you describe, in detail, the work that you're doing for the Ukrainian political party Osnova?

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Zackary Massingham

No, I cannot.

I believe they have an app. That's about it.

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

So your company, which has been reiterated....

There are two principals, you and Mr. Silvester, and you are doing work in another country and you don't know what that work is.

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ

Zackary Massingham

It's not us. We're simply providing a software tool.

11 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Who are you providing this tool to?

11 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, AggregateIQ