Whistleblower Spills More India Data, Parties Wanted Caste Info: 10 Facts

Data row: Whistleblower tweets details of Cambridge Analytica's India activities for various parties

Highlights

Cambridge Analytica worked for many parties in India: Christopher Wylie
It provided caste analysis for "national parties" and JDU, he said
Janata Dal United is the only party that is named in documents he posted

New Delhi: Cambridge Analytica, the company accused of massive data breach, worked on Indian political campaigns for years and also provided caste analysis for various parties, reveals a document released on Wednesday. The explosive details were tweeted by Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower who exposed the role of Cambridge Analytica in data breach affecting 50 million Facebook users earlier this month. The document suggests that firm's parent company, Strategic Communications Limited (SCL), conducted behavioral research and polling for at least six state elections in India between 2003 and 2012, including the 2009 national election. The firm worked for many parties, but Janata Dal United is the only one that is named. Wylie said the firm's work in India was "what modern colonialism looks like."

Following are the top 10 updates on Cambridge Analytica's India links:

2012 Uttar Pradesh: The document says in 2012, SCL carried out a caste census in Uttar Pradesh on behalf of a national party. "The research included analysis of caste structure and dynamics within the state leading to conclusions regarding the identification of the party's core voters as well as likely swing voters," it says. In 2011, the company worked on identifying voter caste by household.
2009 National election: The company managed the campaigns of "a number of Lok Sabha candidates", says the document.
2010 Bihar Election: "SCL India was asked to provide electoral research and strategy for the 2010 state elections for the Janata Dal (United)". It says the firm helped the client in identifying "the right audiences, messages and most importantly the right castes to target with their campaigns."
2007 Uttar Pradesh: The company carried out a "full political survey on behalf of a major party".
2007 Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, UP: SCL was asked to take up a campaign that "focused on ancillary populations as opposed to perpetrators of violent jihadism themselves and required in-depth motivational understanding of the population of six states."
2003 Madhya Pradesh election: The document says the company worked for a national party to identify swing voters. It analysed "behavioural dynamics in key seats so the party could appeal to the caste make-up and attitudinal positions of the swing population".
2003 Rajasthan election: "A major state party contracted SCL India to carry out two major pieces of work, one internal and aimed at assessing the party's organizational strength and the other external and looking at the nature of the voting population and the attitudes and behaviours of politically-active individuals within the state."
Yesterday, Wylie, 28, told a British parliamentary committee that the Congress was a client of Cambrdige Analytica.
Cambridge Analytica's website states that it was contracted to work on the Bihar 2010 elections, but it does not mention the other campaigns cited in Wylie's leaked documents.
The government has asked both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook whether personal data of Indians had been compromised or used to affect the outcome of elections. The government has asked for a reply by April 7.