By letter dates 2018 March 26, Mr. David Abdulah, the Political Leader of the Movement for Social Justice, wrote to the Chairman of the Integrity Commission of Trinidad and Tobago “formally requesting that the Integrity Commission investigates whether any public funds and or resources were used by:
The Ministry of National Security and/or the National Security Council and/or the Office of the Prime Minister (under whose portfolio the National Security Council may have resided given that
the Prime Minister chairs the NSC) and/or any other Government Ministry, Department or Agency (including state enterprises whose Board members are “persons in public life”
The Ministry of Legal Affairs and/or the Attorney General’s Office
The Ministry of Planning and/or the Central Statistical Office
to hire Cambridge Analytica and/or SCL Elections or any related firm (e.g. Palantir, AggregateIQ) to engage in data mining or similar activity; and to further investigate if the results and/or information obtained from such activity/research were then used by any political party or officials of any party that held public office in the timeframe January 1, 2013 to September 30, 2015”.
In support of this request the MSJ Political Leader referred to information in the public domain since May, 2017 including an MSJ Media Statement on this issue. It was in May 2017 that the reference to Cambraidge Analytica/SCL Elections and the related companies of AggregateIQ and Palantir doing business in Trinidad and Tobago first surfaced. The report published in the UK Guardian newspaper has since been reprinted here by the local press. It explicitly referred to the T&T National Security Council and/or Minister contracting the services of this firm(s) to do data mining and that this information was then to be available for political purposes. The issue of data mining for political use and the violation of social media users’ privacy has now become an international scandal involving these firms, Facebook and politicians in both the US and UK.
One report in the Trinidad Express of March 28, 2018 has quoted Christopher Wylie a former Cambridge Analytica employee and a whistle blower in giving evidence before the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee, as confirming that a related company AggregateIQ was engaged to do work in T&T and that it was “pitched to the Minister of National Security”. This latest information has also been forwarded to the Integrity Commission by letter dated March 28, 2018.
Mr. Abdulah referenced the relevant sections of the Integrity in Public Life Act stating:
“We are therefore calling on the Integrity Commission to investigate whether or not there was a violation of the Integrity in Public Life Act Clauses 24 (2) (c) and (d) and Clause 25 among other relevant Clauses. Clauses 24 (2) (c) and (d) specifically prohibit a person in public life from “using public property or
services for activities not related to his official work”; “directly or indirectly using his office for private gain” respectively; while Clause 25 prohibits a person in public life from “using information that is gained in the execution of his office and which is not available to the general public to further or seek to further his private interests”.
It is our respectful view that “private interests” include the interests of the election campaign of the individual in public life and/or the election campaign of the political party of which he is an official/ member/supporter.”
The MSJ views this matter very seriously and looks forward to a robust and urgent investigation by the Integrity Commission and if necessary action taken against anyone who may have been guilty of breaking the law. The MSJ will also be writing the Attorney General with respect to the status of the Data Protection Act which was debated and passed by the Parliament in 2011 and assented to on June 22, 2011, but which to our knowledge has not been fully proclaimed and implemented. This Act can provide privacy protection of individual’s information.
Movement for Social Justice
Alania Bachan
Public Relations Officer
