The rearguard Remain lobby, which has far from given up on its ambition to reverse the Brexit vote, has put much store in the alleged electoral malpractice of Aaron Banks and his Leave.EU campaign, as well as the actions of the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica. Along the way it has found the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) eager to investigate.
There has, however, been a drawback to this strategy: it has invited examination of the Remain campaign’s own spending and use of personal data. Sure enough, a report published by the ICO today offers some possible dynamite. It reads:
‘During the course of our investigation, we obtained information that the Liberal Democrats had sold the personal data of its party members to BSiE [Britain Stronger in Europe] for approximately £100,000.
In June and July 2018, we served information notices on Open Britain, the successor organisation to BSiE, and the Liberal Democrats, under the DPA1998, to investigate these issues.’
For their part, the Lib Dems and Open Britain have denied that the Lib Dems sold its own members’ personal data.
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