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Officials seek warrant to investigate Cambridge Analytica HQ after compromising footage released
The UK's Information Commissioner is seeking a court warrant to search Cambridge Analytica's London headquarters after a hidden camera video broadcast by Channel 4 showed the firm's chief boasting about the use of honey traps and bribery to damage politicians.
Cambridge Analytica was already under the spotlight following allegations at the weekend that it had misappropriated data from 50m Facebook users to influence the US presidential race in 2016.
On Monday, Channel 4 News broadcast hidden camera footage in which executives of the advertising company including chief Alexander Nix appeared boasting about the tactics employed by his firm to undermine politicians.
The reporter for Channel 4, who posed as a wealthy client, said he wanted to influence the Sri Lanka elections in order to boost one candidate's chances of being chosen.
In the video, Nix told the undercover reporter that the company can do a lot more than "deep digging".
"Deep digging is interesting, but you know equally effective can be just to go and speak to the incumbents and to offer them a deal that's too good to be true, and make sure that video is recorded. You know, these sorts of tactics are very effective, instantly having video evidence of corruption, putting it on the internet, these sorts of things."
He also said he could "send some girls around to the candidate's house [...]" saying that Ukrainian girls "are very beautiful, I find that works very well."
According to the video, those practices were examples of what could be done and "what has been done" by the firm.
The company responded by saying the footage is "grossly misrepresented", with Nix having chosen to play along with this line of conversation to "spare our client from embarrassment", entertaining him with a series of "ludicrous hypothetical scenarios".
"Cambridge Analytica does not condone or engage in entrapment, bribes or so-called 'honeytraps'," it said.
UK Information Commissioner at the ICO Elizabeth Denham, who was investigating the advertising company over the alleged use of leaked data from Facebook, demanded access to the firm's databases and servers, although she said that this was only one side of the investigation.
She would also look into the truthfulness of Cambridge Analytica's responses in the government inquiry about 'fake news', assess the legality of the methods used to acquire the personal data and whether or not sufficient consent was given to share it.
Facebook itself, which had also started a probe into the leaked data used by the advertising company, was forced to stand down by request of Denham herself to avoid interference with ICO's own investigation into the matter.