Cambridge Analytica
After joining SCL Group in 2003, Nix spent a decade in its strategic communications arm. In 2013 he established Cambridge Analytica (CA) as a political communications affiliate of SCL and became its chief executive. CA promoted data-driven voter targeting based on large datasets and behavioural segmentation, and it opened offices in London, New York and Washington, D.C. Outside the United States, the firm worked across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Company materials claimed work on "more than 40" political campaigns in these regions. [5] [8] [9] [10]
In the United States, CA was active in the 2014 midterm elections and in the 2016 presidential cycle. Backed by funding linked to the Mercer family, major Republican donors with long-standing ties to U.S. conservative causes, the firm first supported the Ted Cruz campaign and later worked with the Donald Trump campaign. [11] [9] Its voter targeting aimed to identify persuadable or undecided audiences and deliver tailored digital messaging to those segments rather than to the broader electorate. Claims about the scope and effectiveness of CA's "psychographics" later drew scrutiny in the press and academia, and several reports disputed that such techniques uniquely determined outcomes in 2016. [10] [12] [13]
In the United Kingdom, CA pitched services to the Leave.EU campaign in 2015–2016. Official inquiries later reported no evidence of a formal contract or paid engagement in the EU referendum. Public statements by Leave.EU figures and former CA staff described informal contacts. Andy Wigmore later said the firm's interest was pro bono because Nigel Farage was close to the Mercer family and Robert Mercer had introduced CA to Leave.EU. During the same period the Foreign Office sought advice from the firm, and Nix met Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in 2016. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
In February 2018 Nix told the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that CA had not received Facebook data. [19] [20] [21] [22] In March 2018 The New York Times and The Observer reported that CA had obtained Facebook user data from an external researcher who had told Facebook the collection was for academic purposes. [22] [10] [11] [23] Shortly afterwards Channel 4 News aired undercover footage in which Nix discussed potential opposition-research tactics, including bribery and "honey-trap" stings, and said the company "ran all of [Donald Trump's] digital campaign". [24] [10] [25] [26] [27] [28] Facebook said it had been deceived and suspended CA from advertising on its platform. [10] [29] [30] CA suspended Nix the day after the Channel 4 broadcast and appointed Julian Wheatland as acting chief executive. [29] [10] [31] On 23 March 2018 the UK Information Commissioner obtained a High Court warrant to search the company's London offices. [32] In May 2018 the company announced that it would cease operations and enter insolvency. [33]
Regulatory actions
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission in 2019 announced and later granted final approval to a settlement with Alexander Nix and Aleksandr Kogan that imposed conduct restrictions and required the deletion of data collected for Cambridge Analytica. [40] [41]
In the United Kingdom, SCL Elections Ltd, Cambridge Analytica's UK affiliate, was fined in January 2019 for failing to comply with an ICO enforcement notice issued after a subject access request by U.S. academic David Carroll. [42] The following year, the Secretary of State accepted Nix's disqualification undertaking (effective 5 October 2020), imposing a seven-year ban on acting as a director or, without court permission, taking part in the promotion, formation or management of any UK company. [43] [44] [45] The Insolvency Service said that, within the undertaking, Nix did not dispute that SCL Elections or associated companies marketed "potentially unethical services", and its chief investigator, Mark Bruce, said the agency had concluded that SCL Elections had "repeatedly offered shady political services to potential clients over a number of years." Nix said he made no admission of wrongdoing. [43]
