Here's a short thread of the questions I asked the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, on the ICO’s investigation into Cambridge Analytica's seized servers and use of personal data. @CommonsDCMS

Firstly, I asked the Information Commissioner about the US Intelligence Committee's report and if they had contacted the ICO to receive evidence that had been seized from Cambridge Analytica's servers. She says she hasn't been contacted but would share if officially requested.
In April 2019 the ICO office promised a report into the
seizure of some of Cambridge Analytica's servers. I asked the Commissioner why the @CommonsDCMS only received a letter and not a report as stated.
Next I asked about material which fell outside of the ICO's investigation but wasn't passed onto other authorities. The Commissioner says they have passed on data to the National Crime Agency, but they are in consultation with experts on what should be retained or disposed.
I then asked about new evidence which has come to light since the ICO's investigation which shows the relationship between Cambridge Analytica and AIQ is a lot closer than the ICO's findings stated.
I asked the Commissioner if the new evidence, which has come from Brittany Kaiser, has any relevance to the investigation and with new evidence still coming to light if it is wise to destroy data from the servers.
In 2018 Mark Zuckerberg testified in a US Senate Select Committee and promised Facebook would do a full audit of the Cambridge Analytica server data once the ICO investigation had been completed. I asked the Commissioner if the ICO has been contacted by Facebook for their audit.
Finally I asked the Commissioner about the ICO's report into political parties, the main credit reference agencies and the major data brokers, as well as Cambridge University's Psychometrics Centre.
@carolecadwalla

More from Government

Which metric is a better predictor of the severity of the fall surge in US states?

1) Margin of Democrat victory in Nov 2020 election
or
2) % infected through Sep 1, 2020

Can you guess which plot is which?


The left plot is based on the % infected through Sep 1, 2020. You can see that there is very little correlation with the % infected since Sep 1.

However, there is a *strong* correlation when using the margin of Biden's victory (right).

Infections % from
https://t.co/WcXlfxv3Ah.


This is the strongest single variable I've seen in being able to explain the severity of this most recent wave in each state.

Not past infections / existing immunity, population density, racial makeup, latitude / weather / humidity, etc.

But political lean.

One can argue that states that lean Democrat are more likely to implement restrictions/mandates.

This is valid, so we test this by using the Government Stringency Index made by @UniofOxford.

We also see a correlation, but it's weaker (R^2=0.36 vs 0.50).

https://t.co/BxBBKwW6ta


To avoid look-ahead bias/confounding variables, here is the same analysis but using 2016 margin of victory as the predictor. Similar results.

This basically says that 2016 election results is a better predictor of the severity of the fall wave than intervention levels in 2020!

You May Also Like