Undisclosed Advantage
Political Parties Profiting in the Digital Age
By Conchita Galvez, Melissa Bezan, Daniel Reech, Rachel Sloane and Kayla Guerrette
When University of Regina student Ret Brailsford received an automated text on his cell phone from a political party in 2020, he felt violated.
Brailsford hadn’t given his cell number to the party. “I’d rather see people go back to actually reaching out and talking to the constituents and understanding the issues they want,” he said.
Our personal online data is available to politicians, whether we consent or not. The information we leave online – from our browsing history, likes, shares, re-tweets, and even our archived photos and videos, can all be used by political parties.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been robocalled but when I’ve been robocalled it’s shocking how ineffective they seem to be.” – Colleen Bell, political scientist
Political parties using personal information to reach voters goes well beyond the use of social media. During the 2020 provincial election, the Saskatchewan Party targeted voters on their personal cell phone, hiring Toronto-based iMarketing Solutions Group to robocall and robotext voters.
Prior to rebranding themselves, iMarketing Solutions Group was known as Responsive Marketing. The company had been involved in a robocall scandal during the 2011 federal election, where allegedly the call-centre employees said they had been provided a script that misled voters on poll locations on election day. The Conservative Party provided the script on polls being moved.
Infographic created by Melissa Bezan
In the case of the Saskatchewan calls, iMarketing Solutions Group said they received personal cell phone numbers from the Canadian Numbering Administration (CNA). The CNA is responsible for assigning phone numbers.
The Saskatchewan Party sent “Kate from the Sask Party” texts asking people whether or not they were supporters. Brailsford said the text was off-putting as no one enjoys getting a text from an unknown number.
“It definitely doesn’t feel good — getting a text from a strange number, and having my data collected and sold off to somebody else,” said Brailsford.
“Every political party tends to see particular demographics as ones they would be inclined to target.” – Colleen Bell
Two leading political parties in Saskatchewan, the New Democratic Party and The Saskatchewan Party, have both relied on our online identities to profit politically, creating voter profiles for targeted ads on social media.
University of Saskatchewan political scientist Colleen Bell said targeted ads lead to some people seeing only left-leaning ads and others only right-leaning ads online — unlike in traditional media, where people see ads from all parties.
“Every political party tends to see particular demographics as ones that they would be inclined to target, said Bell. “If people have personal information of theirs, that’s on the internet, that then can be kind of used by parties to kind of identify where these people live.”
Colleen Bell speaks to how targeted ads work in the digital world.
“There is a possibility of misinformation, deliberate manipulation through social media.”– Dr Ken Coates
In addition to hyper-partisan political advertising, the online world has become a space where political rumours and misinformation thrive.
As well, there is evidence mistrust of the government has accelerated during the COVID-19 lockdown. In interviews with 498 people, 238 people told our national investigative team that they trust the government less since the pandemic began.
Infographic created by Melissa Bezan
Barbara Von Tigerstrom speaks to how voter trust can be regained.
The rise of misinformation became apparent during the 2016 US presidential election between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. Nearly 50,000 Twitter bots reached over 600,000 Americans containing propaganda tweets and misinformation about Hilary Clinton. Bots make it easy to spread propaganda and misinformation which can be re-shared by other users.
Once misinformation begins circulating the internet, this makes it difficult to remove the fake news as it gets picked up by other social media platforms. Despite the concern of misinformation, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg argues the platform is necessary for freedom of expression.
Twitter, on the other hand, banned political advertisements in 2019. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says the platform would not be committed to preventing misinformation if it allowed for paid political advertisements targeting users.
Twitter’s political advertisement ban made Facebook the leading platform for politicians to spread their messages. During the 2020 Saskatchewan provincial election, both the Sask Party and NDP increased their advertisement spending leading up to the election.
Our research found the NDP spent at least $56,700 on Facebook ads that ran during election week from October 21 to 26. The Sask Party spent at least $10,200 on Facebook ads that ran during that same period.
The spending doesn’t only happen at election time. Overall, the Sask Party spent $108,794 and the NDP spent $196,553 on Facebook ads relating to social issues, elections, or politics between June 2019 and April 2021.
Additionally, third party organizations that do not themselves run candidates often invest in advertising to influence voter choices. In some jurisdictions, unions and corporations cannot donate to political parties or candidates, but they can fund third party organizations and purchase ads.
Infographic created by Melissa Bezan
Dr. Ken Coates speaks to the power corporations and unions have on the election process.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees-Saskatchewan created Facebook ads targeting Premier Scott Moe. In the week leading up to the election, nine CUPE Sask-sponsored ads featured photos of Premier Scott Moe with text saying, “Not looking out for families”, “It’s a question of trust,” and “$23 billion deficit.”
CUPE Sask has also reached across provincial boundaries with ads targeting Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
The nine ads had a potential reach of 500,000 to 1 million Facebook users geared toward men between the ages of 18 to 34.
Nationally the federal NDP receives a great deal of their support from labour unions, making these third party organizations one of the top third-party advertising spenders around election periods. Leading up to the 2019 federal election, unions spent $1.7 million on anti-conservative ads.
UNIFOR spent just over $1.4 million during the 2019 federal election, including $25, 413 on partisan activities and $836,765 on partisan advertising. CUPE spent $160,728, including $110, 425 on partisan activities and $28, 731 on election advertising.
On the right, organizations such as Canada Strong and Proud and the National Citizens Coalition also ran ad campaigns during the election, according to reports filed with Elections Canada.
Canada Strong and Proud spent a total of $193,267.68 on partisan activity expenses. The group spent a total of $270,245.06 during the 2019 election campaign. The National Citizens Coalition spent a total of $4,166 on partisan advertisements. The third party group spent a total of $38,878 during the 2019 election period.
Social media has the power to damage the reputation of a political figure, as was the case with Liberal Member of Parliament Ralph Goodale.
In 2019, the Canada Growth Council, a group that supports right leaning policies, created a group called WestWatch that was behind political attacks with the message “Vote out Ralph Goodale”.
Political parties remain unregulated, meaning they can collect our voter information without any consequence.
According to Barbara von Tigerstrom who is a law professor at the University of Saskatchewan, political parties would not be breaching any privacy laws because they are not subject to any regulation.
The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), also known as Canada’s privacy law, does not include political parties.
“They can collect and use information about that, share it with each other, or get information from other organizations without breaching the law because they are effectively unregulated in most of Canada,” said von Tigerstrom.
“I think most people would assume because of the nature of political organizations and most people know that the government is subject to some privacy regulation, they would assume that the same would apply to a political party without realizing that they are different types of organizations.”
Dr Ken Coates speaks to technology advancements and how political parties have taken advantage to gain politically.
In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada’s Digital Charter as a way to help fight misinformation. Misinformation or “fake news” has been on the rise since the US presidential election of 2016.
“The platforms are failing their users,” Trudeau said at the Viva Technology Conference in Paris. “And they’re failing our citizens. They have to step up in a major way to counter disinformation and if they don’t, we will hold them to account and there will be meaningful financial consequences.”
The digital charter, implemented in 2020, consists of ten principles:
Universal Access
Canadians have equal opportunity to access the digital world
Safety and Security
Canadians should feel safe in the digital world and rely on the services they use
Control and Consent
Canadians can control who has their personal data and what kind of data they share
Transparency, Portability, and Interoperability
Canadians have access to their personal information and are free to share it or transfer it without undue burden
Open and Modern Digital Government
Canadians can access digital services from the Canadian government
A Level Playing Field
There is fair competition in the online marketplace
Data and Digital for Good
The ethical use of data, ensured by the Canadian government
Strong Democracy
Defend freedom of expression in the digital world and fight back against disinformation
Freedom from Hate and Violent Extremism
Digital platforms won’t spread hate or violence
Strong Enforcement and Real Accountability
Penalties if the law and regulations are violated