UK General Election 2017: How EU law will hit British politicians' Facebook fight The internet is buzzing with claims about the role of data and use of algorithms by politicians to swing votes. Whether data played so important a part in campaigns from 2015 General Election to the EU referendum and how far data will shape the outcome of the upcoming snap General Election is interesting, but – ultimately – …
"...to map the fears and desires of swing voters, and design highly personalised messaging that would appeal to them."
Which basically summarises one of the (many) core problems of UK politics - the main parties are only interested in convincing each person to vote for them and put them in power. It doesn't matter if that means promising different random (and impossible) things to each voter, even if you know you can't deliver (£350 million...etc). Just tell them what they want to hear.
If we want to clean up politics (and I think most of us do) we need to get to a point where the candidates for election say what they believe in. What are their principles and philosophy? What is their vision for a future Little-Snodbury-in-the-Wold, Britain, Europe or the World? It's good to know as well what specific policies they would implement to move towards that vision, but policies should come from what the candidate believes in, not be something to get the vote of Mrs F Ashist round the corner.
The candidates task is then to persuade the voters to support their vision, not to promise them the impossible.
There are some smaller parties who do actually work that way. I'll leave the reader to decide which ones.
ROBO-Appealing to the individual voter?
It is just robocalling and cold calling banks for the 21st century. Quite effective.
IMHO, this poster is a very good fit for the referendum and the last two anglo-saxon elections: https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Robot-Movie-Poster-18/dp/B01ANZRTMS
The candidates task is then to persuade the voters to support their vision, not to promise them the impossible.
In your first paragraph, you bemoaned a system in which candidates get themselves elected and then do exactly what they want, regardless of any specific promises. As far as I can see, you're simply proposing a system where the candidates use a wishy-washy "vision" to garner votes, still get to do whatever they want in office, with the added convenience of not having to make up promises they won't keep. How does that help the poor, bemused Welsh hill-billies of Capel Curig?
When they vote for Jezza, because he is "going to create a fairer Britain", what will that mean for them? They've got expensive energy bills because of the last Labour' government's energy policy (continued by the Tories); They've got shite education because Plaid is simply a public sector vested interest party, so neither of those problems will change. Is there some vast inequality between the wealthy elite of Waun Fawr, and the downtrodden of Talybont and Capel Curig that voting for some vague and poorly defined vision will see resolved?
I'd remind you that last time we had a prime minister elected largely on a vision without policies, we got a vacuous socialist liberal, whose legacy was a bankrupted Treasury, a Middle East war that has now been raging for about fifteen years, mass migration that caused a popular revolt over EU membership, energy policy that couples high costs with no reserve margin, a bloated foreign aid programme when we can't even pay for the health services we want, and who started GCHQ's downhill roll into universal surveillance, etc etc. Is that really your idea of an improvement?
The previous Blair / Brown Labour is mentioned often when defending the current Conservative govt. The consistent factor running through both of these examples of government is deep corruption. I'll be voting Corbyn because he is by all accounts (and with a vast track record to prove it) the most morally robust, principled and honest politician around - even his enemies will admit this.
As much as I like [most of] his policies I doubt he could get close to affording them. That said I personally think he would be much better that May when it comes to negotiating. Mays posturing is just going to get everyones backs up, she already has the EU against her and makes it worse every day. Corbyn comes across as actually sincere and can command respect, to those who politics does not mean arguing like school boys/girls. The negotiations are going to be long and hard, someone who can maintain respect rather than focusing on getting sound bite and newspaper headlines would be best placed.
'most morally robust, principled and honest politician around'
It's just a shame some of his principles involve supporting people who were committing terrorist atrocities against the UK. Still at least he's consistent.
https://capx.co/corbyn-has-a-shabby-history-of-backing-the-bad-guys/
Your source here is CapX run by former editor of the Telegraph newspaper which is owned by the Barclay Brothers / tax evaders with Middle East oil interests so obviously CapX will manufacture garbage articles like the example you've provided. Corbyn is threatening dubious tax evading mechanisms of corporates like Barclay Bros and also opposes oil/natural resources leveraging / interventionism a catalyst for the Iraq War etc CapX looks like PR and about as credible as The Sun. Noam Chomsky - one of the most respected dissident intellectuals of our time endorsed Corbyn yesterday.
>a bankrupted Treasury
If the treasury was bankrupt in 2010, when national debt was £700bn, how do you describe it now after 7 years of austerity when it is approaching £1.9tn and rising?
The current government have borrowed more money than every other post-war government put together.
....one of the (many) core problems of UK politics - the main parties are only interested in convincing each person to vote for them and put them in power.
Er. That's nothign to do with "politics in this country", it's a fundamental issue with democracy. You'll notice that this section is number 25 in the arricle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_democracy#Manipulation_or_control_of_public_opinion
If we want to clean up politics (and I think most of us do)
For values of "us" meaning "persons who have never bothered to join a party, let alone attend a meeting or deliver some leaflets". Hating on politicians is as easy and as lamebrained as going on about "rip-off energy companies" or "fat cat bankers". If you're a student, you get a free pass to be a naive idealist with no concept of the real world. The rest of us... not so much.
@Tom Paine
"For values of "us" meaning "persons who have never bothered to join a party, let alone attend a meeting or deliver some leaflets".
or possibly also meaning "persons who have been members of a political party for years, who have been branch officers, who have sat through too many dull meetings, who have knocked on uncounted doors and delivered many, many leaflets, who have stood for Parliament on more than one occasion, and for local councils, and who have been active parish councillors for quite a few years"
"need to get to a point where the candidates for election say what they believe in".
On Monday or Tuesday.
What surprised me before the referendum was how some sites simply rejected my comments when against "leave". As I was hardly the only one the result was of course that all comments repeated the same lies.
Linked this on Politico some time ago and it was quickly deleted.
Too disturbing?.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekZCpIVBjoo
"The Data Protection Act clearly requires processing of data to take place in countries and using data processors that comply with EU Data Protection principles."
Is that one of those tyranical foreign impositions that will be swept away by the glorious Brexit? (That's a genuine question. The cynicism is just my natural state.)
It could be, but it would mean that businesses in the UK would find it very difficult to do business with Europe.
The UK could repeal the EU DP laws (RIPA is a good example of this, it has been rejected by the EU courts and the ECHR several times as being illegal / breaking human rights doctrines) and sent back to the UK Parliament for re-working. Post Brexit the UK government said STFU EU, we'll implement it anyway, even if it breaks human rights conventions in the EU.
That alone will make it hard to do business in Europe post Brexit, if the UK government also castrates data protection law in favour of allowing big corporations to exploit its sheep voters citizens, then there will be next to no chance of UK businesses being able to effectively do business in Europe.
Yes. This, exactly. Right now loads of UK IT firms do business processing EU data. Kick out the GDPR and they are fecked. Instantly.
I guess there is some argument, in terms of the rights of UK firms to do what the hell they like with customer data, for opting out of the GDPR. But anyone arguing that would then also have to argue why it would be a good thing for the UK to be barred from processing any data relating to people living in the EU
Laws like this are often misconstrued as being somehow restrictive to the UK, as if the EU is forcing a law upon as that we don't want. This is actually a law that applies to the whole EU, and actually makes life easier for us while we're still in. It will be the removal of the Law by the UK that will cause the problem, not the keeping of it.
The UK could repeal the EU DP laws (RIPA is a good example of this, it has been rejected by the EU courts and the ECHR several times as being illegal / breaking human rights doctrines) and sent back to the UK Parliament for re-working.
Most of these cases have been fought under The Charter (EUCFR) as opposed to the directives, it's not clear if that will continue to apply. For UK citizens in the UK the GDPR will not apply post-brexit and *that* is why the point this article is trying to make is moot.
it certainly isn't for UK businesses wishing to continue doing business with Europe
I can list many ways it won't be.
A few examples:
* ring-fence EU citizens data and treat it as required by GDPR.
* Don't deal with EU citizens (at all).
* Ignore the GDPR entirely - it's not exactly as if it'll be verifiable and if something happens and they make a case out of it what's to stop you telling the EU courts to go f**k themselves.
That's just a small sampling of the many many options available to UK business when we leave the EU (and incidentally those options apply to most EU regs).
Almost nobody post-brexit is going to pay attention to the EU GDPR when we leave unless the government is stupid enough to keep it as part of our laws, which I find extremely unlikely. Most US business won't play to those standards so I doubt UK business will.
It's saying: look, here are some principles that we, th4e Brits, have signed up to with respect to Data Protection, privacy, processing of data, etc.
One big loophole to any such approach would be if any business could simply offshore its data processing operations and stick two fingers up to local law. So the DPA includes a principle to the effect that if you wish to be compliant, under the DPA, then you proccess only in countries/jurisdictions where data protection regs provide at least as much protection to the individual as they get in the UK.
Now, times that by Europe. The EU worked out a broad position on data protection, which the UK was instrumental in devising, which has since found expression in various DP directives. The result: UK and EU law on data protection are harmonised and businesses don't need to worry, if they are processing data within the EU area, about cross-border transfers. Very handy when one works, as i once did, for businesses with pan-european sales forces and a single central database.
Fast forward to next year: the EU, again, has, courtesy of the GDPR, tightened up on its data protection stance. The UK was involved in discussion of what those regs should be, and agreed to go along with them. The alternative would be opting out, at which point any UK business that processes data for EU companies would lose that business. Instantly.
"In 2015, for instance, a change of heart by just shy of 900 people might have given the UK an entirely different result. The Conservative overall majority of 12 would have been overturned had just seven seats swung the other way"
That's quite a big return for the "administrative error" on election expenses by the winning party.
Oooh, a potential criminal offence in en El Reg comment... that's a new one!
Bet you didn't know this:
http://www.inbrief.co.uk/media-law/defamation-of-election-candidates/
Five minutes with google comparing the seats where the Corbynistas have been shrieking about fraud with the seats where those 900 votes were distributed would have saved you some embarrassment, not to mention worrying about the law arriving :)
It's been investigated now, it was an "Administrative error". not enough evidence to say it is criminal, just that the people running the country are incapable of correctly filling out an expenses form..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39865801
"Although there is evidence to suggest the returns may have been inaccurate, there is insufficient evidence to prove to the criminal standard that any candidate or agent was dishonest,"
Careful wording if ever I saw it :)
"Perhaps party lawyers on either side are even now testing the water for loopholes: because, it could be argued, automated processing and the use of big data in the context of elections may have a significant aggregate effect overall – but a minimal effect on individual voters."
How can that argument stand up? Even the prospect of a win by PryMincer MayBot is having a major effect on my alcohol intake.
On the other hand, the German lessons and emigration plans are going well.
This post has been deleted by its author
Yes,
And people try to encourage apathy by suggesting to those voting the way they don't want them to that it's a done deal, so there is no need to go and vote.
Compulsory voting would be good.
As would AVS, or at least an option to either say 'vote for this person' or 'vote against this person'
NOOOoooooooo! Compulsory voting!
We have it over here in Australia and our governments are as morally corrupt & full of idiots as yours over in the UK.... and we have compulsory voting!
At least in the UK the wanna-be polies have to actually get out of bed to try and get you to go to the polling booth (well maybe not themselves, but certainly one of their cronies have to get out of bed).... over here they can have a nice sleep-in knowing full well that unless they have peed you off more than the "other guy/girl" you are going to HAVE to vote for them......
Does "Big Data" take apathy on a rainy day into account on polling day?
Parties have been doing that for decades.Traditionally bad weather was seen as good for the Tories, since their supporters were more likely to have cars, leading Labour to organize buses in poorer areas. These days all parties have armies of car-owning volunteers to take people to the polling stations if they ask.
In my experience as a political activist in the UK, the political parties are the only organisations that take the Telephone Preference List seriously. That is the list of people who do not want unsolicited telesales calls.
The parties know that an unwanted telephone canvassing call will lose them that vote.
Politics is not a glamorous business and it has many critics who would not "dirty" their own hands. You look at some UK politicians and think, yes, they do reflect the less appealing elements in our voter database.
But the alternatives are a lot worse. Dealing with people, and all the faults that people have, is not an easy task. It could be argued that President Trump is an example of what happens when a businessman rather than a politican is elected.
Nah they don't.
How easy would it me to... say...
On the QT, engage an indian company to call on behalf of the opposition all those numbers on the TPS list especially in the key marginals?
I'd probably put a tenner on that swinging the votes.
Is it illegal?
IANAL and that's my cop-out.
If anyone found out, then [see icon]
The Daily Flail would have a field day especially if it was JC's 'momentum' team that did it.
Anyone calling me about anything to do with market research/surveys and the like get told in no uncertain terms where to stick it.
It does not matter who they represent, my views are just that, my views. Not for merging into that crap cesspit called big data. If more people took this attitude then the valididty of the dataset would become suspect.
If you want to mess with their stats even more, avoid things like Facebook etc between now an polling day. Don't play their game. Don't give them anthything to go on.
If you do happen to get waylaid by a pollster while out shopping, give them a total bunch of bollocks for answers. I'd imagine that the Monster raving loony party might get a decent hike in the polling forecasts.
Yours,
Grumpy Old Man (fully paid up member btw)
If you're interested in 'big data' being used in elections, you'll want to read the Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy
Actually, it's more a case of 'big money'.
Ah, Facebook - that well-known seething pit of pro-Trump, pro-Brexit alt-rightism!
I'd be curious to know how many people switched their opinions in the run-up to the election, but couldn't say why. My guess would be almost no-one. I doubt even the explicit arguments made by the campaigns influenced many people. People already had their opinions and kept them.
I find it slightly amusing that the guardian, so much in favour of having our lives governed by unelected foreigners should write such a lengthy expose on a conspiracy regarding how our lives are being run by, er, unelected foreigners. Whether you think that is good, bad or indifferent, the lack of awareness speaks of a complete irony detection failure or extreme partisanship, turning the news into the image of American news.
The conservatives aren't the only one using big data.
I helped architect such a system for one of the oppositions parties a few years before brexit and had many a meeting at their party HQ.
The boss of our company was a dyed in the wool tory but he was happy to work for the opposition and take the money because he was a tory.
I was asked to act as a "teller" outside of the local polling station for the council elections. It wasn't too bad; a nice day, some interesting people, very light work. All I had to do was ask people for their polling number, write it down, and then direct them to the correct door. (That polling station covered several wards)
Some people were a bit obnoxious; OK, if you don' want to tell me your number, not a problem. I wasn't asking how they voted, and TBH I couldn't care. I just recorded it as a null so that we still had an understanding of the number voting.
Part of the reason for this is to act as a check; the numbers were shared between the parties, and as long as those numbers more or less equated to the turnout, they were happy. If the number of votes cast was much higher than the number of people passing through the door however....
The parties also use the details to check who of their likely supporters has voted or not. They generally check those details and start calling around later in the day. I actually gave some thought to streamlining the process, and considered that a small mobile device with voice recognition software might actually allow the data to be entered more efficiently and accurately, plus it could be really up to date.
On top of that, I can see some interesting possibilities for the data analysis; combining it with electoral register and various other information, and you might be able to see what time people vote, try and see if there are relationships to social factors etc. I was getting quite excited by the possibilities.
Unfortunately, it is far more likely that people would be worried about this data being misused (and with some justification). I suspect that this is what might hold back many other ideas; and again, I can see why sometimes these ideas are great on paper, but dangerous if in the wrong hands.
They'll be round later BECAUSE you didn't give your address. Assuming they canvassed you previously.
The way polling day organisation works is:
- pre-polling day, canvas obtains indication of likelihood to vote
- these returns are fed into central database
- on polling day itself, tellers at polling stations collect data as to who has voted and this is also added to database
- after about 3pm, "knockers up" head out to start prompting those who have indicated some positive preference and who do not appear yet to have voted
- process repeats with increasing regularity as close of poll approaches
Therefore if you have given any indication you MIGHT vote for a party, chances are you'll get a visit from the knockers up....and if you refuse to tell tellers to take you off the list, you'll keep being knocked up during the day.
Basically: there's nothing sinister to it. It's part of the regular process of parties mobilising support.
It gets messed up when people tell every canvasser they are going to vote for them and/or refuse to give out enough details to get their name removed from the knocking up list.
In the Lambeth by-election, many years back, a story was told of a Tory knocker-up being physically assaulted by one voter. Apparently, on polling day, the Tory was the eightth person to call at the voters house and ask if they had voted.
Voter was aggrieved. On t'other side, voter appeared to have told every party he was voting for them and then refused to help the tellers.... go figure.
Hardly a threat: simply a statement of fact, as i outline in the post below, responding to the response to your post.
Sure, you are under no obligation to give out the data, but it doesn't harm you and it does mean, if you are on anyone's canvas lists, you are lsss likely to be disturbed later.
The Data Protection Act clearly requires processing of data to take place in countries and using data processors that comply with EU Data Protection principles. For obvious reasons, many US companies do not meet these requirements.
Wrong. Privacy Shield is still, legally, in force. God knows why. but it is.
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/international-transfers/eu-us-privacy-shield/index_en.htm
That's enough to cover data transfer, storage and processing in the US. Otherwise every US-based site that collects any PII and doesn't have an EU-based DC to handle all EU customers' data would be breaking the law.
Reading this article one might easily come away with the wrong impression about GDPR Consent. Consent is just one of six possible lawful reasons. The others are necessity to fulfill a contract, compliance, in someone's vital interest, in the public interest and necessary for the legitimate interests of the data controller.
Expect the political parties (and Microsoft, Google and Facebook) to be making much use of the last two. Want to challenge it - do you have better paid lawyers than Google?
The way things are going there every chance that the Tories will win this election and that by the time you are all ready for the next election, Facebook will be handling it.
It's Election Day - please log into Facebook and cast your vote ...
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper
Surely it's far too late to go after algorithms now...
...most of the real work will have been done years ago making sure that the constituency boundaries were drawn up 'just so' to allow the vote to go the way of those drawing the lines...
Yes, only a few people could change the result of the election. After the election you can see where they are. Before the election? Much much harder.
Most of the effort in canvassing isn't about persuading. People are incredibly difficult to persuade. In all my years of canvassing I can't honestly say I got anyone to change their mind. As you indicated it's about differential turnout. Find out who your supporters are and get the buggers to vote. That is why people sit on polling stations, and collect the data.
If you're worried about the influence of Facebook or big data on that then there is an incredibly easy solution. Make voting compulsory.
Shuttleworths appear to have been named after the printing firm which sold them to the Liberal party. They have also been known as Mikardo pads (the election team in Reading for Labour MP Ian Mikardo may have invented their use). Tories called them Reading pads.
The early forms using carbon paper could have been run off by any printer with a pen ruling machine for making ledgers. Printing and gluing ncr forms was a trickier job so parties commissioned big batches centrally.
A pen ruling machine in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmhqqRzzPgM
Every elector in my house recently received an individually addressed "survey" from one of the political parties recently at our house which superficially was asking for opinions on local issues. Name filled in so you would have to delete it if you anted to stay anonymous. In very small print in odd part of document was an authorisation for full reuse of all info in data processing etc which you had to check to *disallow*. And just in case you were tempted to anonymise yourself in even smaller print in an obscure corner was a number which turned out, by checking with the other copies, to be a unique identifier.
And they wonder why so few of us trust any of them any further than we can throw them!
No anonymity in elections at all, your vote in polling station can be traced back to you easily enough (look at number on voting slip & counterfoil)
Supposedly this does not happen... (meant to be in place for exceptional cases such as vote rigging, though postal / proxies seem to be the favourite method there)
...parties can fall back on the DPA as GDPR will grant similar rights to organisations to store an individual’s data but not to process it any further.
In other words, "none at all", per the Fifith Principle?
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/principle-5-retention/
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