Profiling

30 Aug 2021
Since launching its The Learning App in 2015, the Indian EdTech company Byju's had grown to serve more than 80 million users and 5.5 million paid subscribers by 2021; it provides learning programs for students aged four years old and up. However, former employees say that underpinning the company's
01 Jun 2020
During the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, US police took advantage of a lack of regulation and new technologies to expand the scope of people and platforms they monitor; details typically emerge through lawsuits, public records disclosures, and stories released by police department PR
Article extract: "An app that the UK’s governing party launched last year — for Conservative Party activists to gamify, ‘socialize’ and co-ordinate their campaigning activity — has been quietly pulled from app stores..." "...We know the name of the Conservative Campaigner app’s supplier because this
Article extract: "A meaty first report by the UK parliamentary committee that’s been running an inquiry into online disinformation since fall 2017, including scrutinizing how people’s personal information was harvested from social media services like Facebook and used for voter profiling and the
Article extract: ""People with center-right views feel like the big social platforms, Facebook and Twitter, are not sympathetic to their views,” said Thomas Peters, the chief executive of uCampaign, a start-up in Washington that developed the N.R.A., Great America and Trump campaign apps. “It’s
Article extract: "Ireland's two largest anti-abortion campaigns are facing questions over privacy after a BuzzFeed News analysis found that personal user data gathered by both of their apps can be shared with an international network of conservative and religious groups that includes the US National
Article extract: "French laws designed to prohibit individual-level targeting are circumvented by services like those provided by Paris-based firm Liegey Muller Pons, which aggregates personal data. Such services are no less data-intensive than those unconstrained by such legal requirements." "•
Article extract: "On Aug. 2, the Liberal party sent an email to Liberal campaigns across the country, promoting services offered by Data Sciences Inc., a company owned by Tom Pitfield, an old friend of Justin Trudeau and the 2019 campaign’s digital director. The party urged local campaigns to hire
Article extract- translated from the original French. "A political big data company with close ties to the federal liberals and which worked on Emmanuel Macron's campaign in France is setting up its head office in Old Montreal to continue its growth and take advantage of Montreal's digital vitality
Article extract: "Anti-smoking campaigners have expressed alarm that "big tobacco" has been employing two of the world's most powerful lobbying companies in a bid to stymie the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes. Crosby Textor, which has been hired by the Conservative party to provide
Article extract: "The lobbying firm run by Boris Johnson’s close ally Sir Lynton Crosby has secretly built a network of unbranded “news” pages on Facebook for dozens of clients ranging from the Saudi government to major polluters, a Guardian investigation has found. In the most complete account yet
Article extract: "A series of hugely influential Facebook advertising campaigns that appear to be separate grassroots movements for a no-deal Brexit are secretly overseen by employees of Sir Lynton Crosby’s lobbying company and a former adviser to Boris Johnson, documents seen by the Guardian reveal
Article extract: "At the end of an alley on a nondescript street, a political consulting firm with the unusual name of Aristotle International has compiled the nation's largest voter databank, the names of 150 million Americans registered to vote. And it is selling them to politicians like George W
Article extract: "One of the nation's largest commercial distributors of voter data sold voter-registration lists featuring detailed personal information without verifying the identity or intent of buyers. Aristotle International used a website to sell the lists, which contain details about
Article extract: "Amid concerns about the rampant spread of “fake news”— and fearful memories of scores of deaths during the 2007 election— it was another seismic development in a fraught election. Last weekend, staffers at Aristotle, an American data firm working for the opposition party, were
26 May 2020
China is adding new features to its coronavirus surveillance app, which has helped many workers and employers return to their former lives, and looks likely to become a permanent fixture. Zhou Jiangyong, the Communist Party secretary of the eastern city of Hangzhou, has said the city's app, which it