Reports of a Brexit breach in which UK Labour party data was improperly shared with Leave.EU and Cambridge Analytica have many people wondering if they were the target of a campaign to sway voters into deciding to leave the European Union back in February 2016.
Liberty Stratcom reported that “data based upon demographics, class, finances and ethnicity, was used to identify core groups of Labour voters to be targeted with UKIP-led messaging and was instrumental in deciding where Nigel Farage appeared to speak during the Brexit campaign.”
The man accused of compiling and sharing Labour party data and party canvassing records with Leave.EU is political consultant Ian Warren from whom Leave.EU had received data reports that formed the strategy of their campaign. In response to the allegations, Warren posted an emotional blog post defending his actions as professional and "in good faith."
Warren wrote that he regrets his decision to conduct demographic analysis for the Leave.EU campaign in 2015.
“The accusation that I used Labour’s own data as part of the Leave.EU campaign is both untrue and deeply offensive. I don’t intend to let that accusation pass, even though again it pains me to say anything in public,” Warren wrote.
Allegedly, Warren compiled a huge dataset of sensitive personal data during the time he spent working for the Labour party during the 2015 election campaign. Leave.EU’s Andy Wigmore said and stands by his statement that Warren“ran Ed Milliband’s team and the general election campaign in 2015 for the Labour Party. He was and still is the Labour party guru.”
Infosecurity Magazine contacted Wigmore to ask whether Warren had provided Labour party data that was used in the Leave.EU campaign. Wigmore wrote in an email, “We received no data from Ian Warren. All he did was provide reports and analysis. No data was shared with anyone and certainly not Leave.eu or Cambridge A. I repeat all he provided was analysis based on his knowledge of the Labour Party.”
When asked if he could confirm whether the postcode targeting data they received from Warren was compliant with the data protection rules published by the Information Commissioner's Office, Wigmore wrote, “I repeat we received no data in any form from Warren, just reports, so you will have to ask him if he is compliant.”
Additionally, Wigmore was quoted as having said, “It was Labour data that formed our strategy and therefore where we deployed Farage.” However, Wigmore today wrote that Leave.EU had no site of the data. “That was his and the Labour Party, not us. All we had was the report.”
According to Warren, it was not personal data that he shared with Leave.EU. Rather, "it is neighbourhood level data. The lowest geographical unit I used for this particular analysis was the lower super output area (LSOA), a geographical unit of some 1,500 persons on average. The postcodes from within each LSOA were derived from lookup files I created.”
While Warren's blog was largely an effort to clarify how and when he collected the data, he also made a point to apologize to the Labour party, noting his love of party and affirming that he never ran Ed Milliband’s campaign and has not since worked for the Labour party, despite Wigmore's comments to the contrary.