Report: Cambridge Analytica’s Parent Company ‘Boasted of Election Meddling’ in Brochures

SCL Elections, the parent company of data firm Cambridge Analytica, bragged about interfering in foreign elections as early as 2006, the BBC reports. Brochures previously published by SCL Elections reportedly include claims the company orchestrated campaigns to sway elections in Latvia, Nigeria, and Trinidad and Tobago. Cambridge Analytica, which started as an offshoot of SCL in 2013, is facing similar allegations in the U.S., where it has been accused of exploiting Facebook data while working for President Trump’s campaign. One boast made by SCL long before the Cambridge Analytica scandal concerns Latvian elections in 2006, ahead of which the company reportedly said it intentionally exploited ethnic tensions to help a client. Ahead of elections in Trinidad and Tobago in 2010, SCL says it organized an “ambitious campaign of political graffiti” that “ostensibly came from the youth” so the client could “claim credit for listening to a 'united youth,’” according to the report. The UK Foreign Office has said it was unaware of these claims before SCL was given government contracts in 2008. Cambridge Analytica says it is looking into the allegations.