Whistleblower urges MPs to question possible Eldon Brexit data breach

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie has told MPs they should look at whether data on customers of Arron Banks’s Eldon Insurance was used to target voters in the Brexit referendum.

Giving evidence to Parliament’s culture select committee, Wylie said it is “a fair question to ask” whether customer data was used by Cambridge Analytica.

He told MPs that he does not know whether there was a relationship between Eldon and Cambridge Analytica, but he had seen Eldon documents talking about the success rate of Leave.EU marketing.

Leave.EU was founded by Banks.

Banks today responded to Wylie’s suggestion to the committee by calling the comments politically motivated and without evidence. He said: “Our position on this is that no customer data was used and nobody has provided any no evidence to the contrary on this.

“All this is is political bad blood on the side of the remain campaign. We are happy to work with anyone that wants to look into this and have done so, but no evidence has ever been brought forward.

“There is no way this could happen to what is a highly regulated entity run by a whole board of directors. This is just political sour grapes.”

Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU leaders have previously talked about working together during the Brexit campaign, though they have since retracted those claims, saying there was no contract and no work was completed.

Banks wrote in 2015 that his group hired Cambridge Analytica, and Leave.EU said on its website in November 2015 that Canbridge Analytica “will be helping us map the British electorate and what they believe in, enabling us to better engage with voters”.

Banks has also tweeted confirmation that Leave.EU worked with Cambridge Analytica.