The Politics of Privacy and the Privacy of Politics: Parties, Elections, and Voter Surveillance in Western Democracies

1. The Politics of Privacy and the Privacy of Politics: Parties, Elections and Voter Surveillance in Western Democracies Professor Colin J. Bennett Department of Political Science University of Victoria British Columbia, Canada www.colinbennett.ca cjb@uvic.ca Presentation to IFIP Summer School, Nijmegen, June 18, 2013

2. Outline • Current trends in voter surveillance in the US • “Voter management” databases including data from commercial data brokerage firms • Integrated campaign toolkits • Micro-targeting • Decentralization to local campaigns • “Targeted sharing” • Importing American practices into other democracies • Data protection law and political parties • The “political science” of voter surveillance

3. PARTY-DIRECTED VOTER MANAGEMENT DATABASES

9. “ELECTIONEAR”

11. Social Media and “Targeted Sharing”

14. “Armed with research from behavioural psychology and randomized experiments that treat voters as unwitting guinea pigs, the smartest campaigns now believe they know who you will vote for even before you do.” “These are the prescription drug-trials for democracy”

15. Voter management systems elsewhere • Canada • Conservative Constituency Information Management System (CIMS) • Liberalist • NDP Vote • UK • Conservatives: Managing Elector Relations through Local Information Networks (MERLIN) • Labour: Contact Creator • Australia • Labour: Electrac • Liberal: Feedback

17. Case Study: The Conservative Information Management System (Canada) • Identify supporters of the Party • Manage memberships • Track issues, lawn signs, volunteers, events and more • Get Out The Vote (GOTV) • Permanent and national database

18. Contents of CIMS • National Register of Electors (Voters List) from Elections Canada • Party Membership List • 308 Poll Key • National survey results • Identified supporters from previous elections • Local survey results • Event attendance • Constituency phone bank results • Door knock results • Election day “bingo”sheets • Donor records

19. What does CIMS look like? • Main screen in CIMS is called the Dashboard • Links across the top for common functions • Menus for other areas of CIMS • Two pie charts that show the levels of Current and Lifetime Supporters

20. Calculating levels of support Tracks Supporters, Non-Supporters and Undecided on scale from -15 to +15

21. Walk and Phone Lists • CIMS has tools to print off lists for canvassers • Each sheet contains the name, address and support level of each constituent • Sheet has a location for entering information gained from the house • Information is then scanned back into CIMS

22. Walk and Phone Lists • CIMS can print off Phone Lists and Phone Sheets • A Phone List is a list of phone numbers with name, address and limited space for notes • A Phone Sheet is one phone number on a page with name, address and lots of room for notes

23. Mail and E-Mail • Householding • e-mail when sharing e-mail addresses • mail when people with the same last name are at the same mailing address • CIMS is connected to an e-mail server that allows it to instantly send messages • Preformatted mailing labels • Mail merge with Word for personalised correspondence

24. Maintain Volunteer Lists

25. Get Out The Vote - GOTV • Find supporters and make sure they get out and vote

26. Data Protection Law and Political Parties: North America • United States • First Amendment dominance • No comprehensive privacy protection law • Scattered state laws governing uses of public databases • Canada • Political parties are not covered by privacy laws • Not covered by Do-Not-Call rules or Anti-Spam legislation • But regulated under Elections Act • Current proposals from Elections Canada

27. Data Protection Law and Political Parties: Europe? • European DP regulation (Recital 36): “Whereas where, in the course of electoral activities, the operation of the democratic system requires in certain Member States that political parties compile data on people's political opinion, the processing of such data may be permitted for reasons of important public interest, provided that appropriate safeguards are established.” • Political opinions – form of sensitive data (Article 8)

28. Article 9 : Processing of special categories of personal data prohibited unless.. d) processing is carried out in the course of its legitimate activities with appropriate safeguards by a foundation, association or any other non-profit seeking body with a political, philosophical, religious or trade-union aim and on condition that the processing relates solely to the members or to former members of the body or to persons who have regular contact with it in connection with its purposes and that the data are not disclosed outside that body without the consent of the data subjects;

29. Data Protection Law and Political Parties in Europe • In theory, parties cannot process data on political affiliations without express consent • But they can process data on members, donors and regular contacts • Generally cannot maintain data from electoral registers (though practices vary) • Stricter rules for e-mail and telemarketing, than mail canvassing

30. United Kingdom • ICO Guidance for Political Parties for Campaigning or Promotional Purposes (2005) • Current questions about legality under Data Protection Act 1998 (Fair processing) and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 of voter management database

31. France • First open primary in French history for socialist party, 2011 • Ruling by Commission Nationale de L’Informatique et Libertes (CNIL), January 26, 2012 • Advice on: “les kits de campagnes”; e-mail; party websites; telemarketing • Guidance on Communication Politique: Obligations Légales et BonnesPratiques(January 2012) • L’Observatoire des elections 2012 http://www.cnil.fr/elections/bilan-chiffre-de-lobservatoire-des-elections/

32. Italy • Declaration by Garante on Electoral Propaganda, September 7, 2005 • Treatment of personal information in “elezioni primarie” 2012, 31 October 2012

33. The Netherlands

34. Parties, candidates and elections: privacy-related issues • Intrusiveness from political marketing: the same rules as for commercial marketing? • Non-consensual capture, use and disclosure of personal information: • Data captured and used by elected officials • Data captured by canvassers • Data captured through cookies • Data captured via social media • Data breaches

35. The “Political Science” of Voter Surveillance and Micro-targeting: The Explanations • Partisan de-alignment: “parties without partisans” • Shift from ‘mass’ and ‘cadre’ parties to ‘catch-all’ parties • Shift to more open procedures for selection of candidates

36. The “Political Science” of Voter Surveillance and Micro-targeting: The Implications • Disproportionate significance of smaller segments of the electorate • Consolidation of power in larger parties • Differential impacts in presidential versus parliamentary systems? • Differential impacts in FPTP v. PR electoral systems • Implications for democratic discourse and association

37. It all boils down to….. “what would Aristotle have thought of Aristotle.com?” ???