Fair Vote UK launches crowdfunder to fight Cambridge Analytica-related data case against Arron Banks
Last year Brittany Kaiser, former Cambridge Analytica employee, said while giving testimony to the DCMS select committee that Eldon Insurance and Big Data Dolphins were storing and using British citizen’s data in Mississippi. This was further backed up by research done by Dr. Emma Briant, who brought forward audio recordings of Andy Wigmore (Director of Communications for Leave.EU) where Mr. Wigmore suggests UK citizens’ data was illegally stored in Mississippi.
In response to this revelation, Fair Vote UK immediately secured legal counsel in Mississippi and pursued a preservation order over this data so that the companies in question could not destroy or tamper with it. They were – at the time – granted a temporary injunction. Fair Vote UK went to Mississippi to testify in the hope of being granted a permanent injunction.
The Information Commissioner’s Office wrote a letter strongly supporting Fair Vote UK’s pursuit of this data, and stated its desire to investigate the data in question:
“Preservation and access to this data is of significant importance to the ICO’s current investigation. For this reason, and in light of potential uncertainty as to whether the data will remain preserved beyond the hearing on 5 June 2018, the ICO lends its support to Fair Vote Project’s claim for permanent injunctive relief.”
Fair Vote UK was unsuccessful in their first attempt, with the court noting certain criteria it would like the entity to meet. Fair Vote UK has now met – to our knowledge – that criteria and thus refiled their motion.
Arron Banks and his group of companies have not yet admitted offshoring of UK citizens’ data despite officers being on tape saying they did in fact offshore data, which is further evidenced by emails obtained during the first hearing.
Fair Vote UK Director Kyle Taylor said: “We don’t want to stop our pursuit. If this injunction is obtained, it could set a precedent and open the door to other cases where individuals can seek to discover and repatriate illegally held data – an issue we now know is a global one.
“While the UK agonises over its political future, calls to defend our democracy have missed the fact our democracy hasn’t been up to the job for quite some time. Data and democracy are now intimately linked. We need now to ask for full democratic accountability. To get there we need to hold any individual or organisation who has abused the weaknesses in our data-driven democratic processes to account.”
“This is not about Brexit and for us never has been, this is about the right of the people to chart their own democratic destinies free from manipulation and that means their data needs to be protected.”
About the need for the crowdfunding, Taylor added: “While we have been fortunate to have had pro-bono legal support and some early donors, to continue this lawsuit we need to crowdfund for legal fees and associated costs. It is likely we will end up back in Court. We are up against a very well-funded opposition. Arron Banks’ group of companies chose independently to fight our efforts to obtain information and documents, which raises some very serious questions. We believe strongly that this case needs to be seen through, and we’re grateful for any support.”
ENDS
For press enquiries please contact sara@fairvote.uk or call 07554 665 940
Notes
If you use any part of Kyle Taylor’s quotation please include a link to the crowdfunder.
Link to crowdfunder: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/data-arronbanks/
