SNP chiefs have released all correspondence between the party and data firm Cambridge Analytica in a bid to prove that their hands are clean.
They have also demanded that all other political parties to do the same.
The email exchange between SNP head of information systems, Christian Jones, and Cambridge Analytica (CA), was also forwarded on to the Information Commission, who is currently investigating the controversial company and its use of data analytics.
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It came on a day of explosive developments, with the revelation that the boffins, who are accused of improperly harvesting data from 87 million Facebook profiles, had been courted by Scotland in Union as recently as last year, despite scandals over CA’s role in Trump’s election as president, and in a dirty political fight in Kenya.
According to the Open Democracy website, the super-rich, zealous anti-independence campaigners met with bosses from the controversial consultants in November last year and even joked about hiring “a hacker to get into the SNP’s data”.
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The emails released by the SNP show that Kirk Torrance, a former party staffer, who was then hired as a consultant for the digital campaign, met with CA on February 18, 2016. That much was confirmed by Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister’s Questions last week.
Jones was also supposed to be at that meeting but had to cancel due to a “major network outage”.
The emails show that the meeting was not, as had been suspected, to discuss the Holyrood elections or Brexit referendum, but for “potential co-operation in Summer 2016”, to discuss the SNP’s “short/long-term strategy and needs”, and for the possibility of “building a new platform and/or supporting the SNP to ensure success in pursuance of your strategy”.
Though there was little more information on what this might be,
it seems likely, given the time frame, that it was on the possibility of a second referendum on independence.
Releasing the emails, Ian Blackford called on all parties and campaign organisations, including the Tories, Scotland in Union, the Leave campaign, and the DUP to “match this level of transparency”.
“It’s time for other parties to face scrutiny over Cambridge Analytica’s continuing assertion to have ‘spoken with representatives of every major UK political party’ and organisations like Scotland in Union’s claims that they talked to Cambridge Analytica about hacking the SNP,” he said.
William Ramsay, deputy chair of Scotland in Union, had reportedly boasted about his organisation’s meeting with CA at an exclusive fundraising dinner.
The meeting seems to have been in November, months after CEO Alexander Nix admitted to reaching out to Wikileaks and Julian Assange in a bid to have access to emails hacked from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Ramsay made the comments last November during a Scotland in Union fundraising dinner in the Caledonian club in London’s upmarket Belgravia.
Ramsay said: “The SNP have an army of supporters, and a sophisticated database – I know that from speaking to Cambridge Analytica the other day, who are not working for them, thank goodness.”
After the story appeared online, Scotland in Union tweeted: “Will Ramsay was introduced to a CA rep at a business mentoring event in London. [Chief Executive] Pamela Nash declined to meet with CA because of concerns about the company. We have never engaged CA to do any work for us.”
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