MP SPEAKS | The right to personal privacy has been a hallmark of democracy for centuries, and it is also a sacred principle in Islam. It was even narrated in an account of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) that a man once looked from a room through his door.
His reaction was crisp. Referring to a comb or stick he had in hand, with which he was scratching his head, he said, "If I had known that you were looking at me, I would have poked you in the eye with this!"
This is not so much an "eye for an eye" as affirmed by the Old Testament, but it is a similarly powerful analogy of the importance of not breaching the space, privacy and selfhood of another.
In the case of Cambridge Analytica and its affiliates, private Facebook user data appears to have been illegally obtained, and then furthermore allegedly utilised unethically and illegally.
Thus, a mere apology from Facebook is not enough. Many questions must be clearly answered and explained. Privacy infringing activities must be rectified, and any firms suspected of illicit activities or illegally funded campaigns must be suspended from the platform.
Within the context of Malaysia, what have Cambridge Analytica, its parent company SCL Group, and their reportedly multiple affiliates and front-organisations done with possible profiles harvested from Malaysian citizens?
Some 50 to 60 million Facebook profiles have been illegally obtained through a quiz called “This is your digital life”. How many of them are Malaysians?
Lifting suspicions
These questions are not posed with the intent to score political points, but rather are raised because of Cambridge Analytica’s own promotion of the fact of their involvement in Malaysia (photo) and self-revelation about the questionable methods they have exploited to achieve their goals.
BN and Umno must lift the cloud of suspicion that Cambridge Analytica, SCL or any number of closely associated actors have used any of this personal information harvested from Malaysians and black-ops style campaigning to skew votes in their favour.
Azrin Zizal, a law graduate and syariah minor from the International Islamic University of Malaysia in 1998, who heads SCL in Southeast Asia, must come clean with evidence and documents of his alleged involvement in Kedah and other elections in Malaysia.
Trading insults with ex-Kedah menteri besar Mukhriz Mahathir can only muddy the waters. Azrin has yet to show proof that the Kedah state election was won with the help of SCL and Cambridge Analytica.
Indeed, what exactly did Cambridge Analytica and SCL do in Malaysia, amidst the 100 countries that its CEO Alexander Nix (photo) has purportedly represented, or compromised?
Although Nix has since been suspended as CEO, highly personal data of tens of millions of innocent individuals are still lodged with the firm.
The reason why Facebook has lost close to US$50 billion in market value on Wall Street in recent days is due to the sinister implications internationally of these many unanswered questions.
The imperative here is to be forthcoming and rid the system of unscrupulous players, whose illegal conduct adversely impact the lives of others.
What is the density and depth of the data surreptitiously or illegally collected?
Did Nix use the psychological tools they developed, as claimed by data scientist-turned-whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, to anticipate how Malaysians would vote? Did they execute or are they now executing any campaign of disinformation to affect Malaysian voting?
Read more: KiniGuide - How politicians use Facebook to influence your vote
Another question hangs on the suspicious sources of Cambridge Analytica and SCL's funding. According to Wylie, once a prodigy of Nix, Cambridge Analytica had begun working five years ago with hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah.
Both were working closely with Steve Bannon, the chief strategist of President Donald Trump until mid-last year.
Did Bannon, the Mercers, and Nix develop any relationship to strengthen the Umno and BN regime, at the expense of Malaysian voters? If they did, even if indirectly, does it implicate Umno and BN in supporting the far-right fringes of US and Russian politics?
After all, these individuals are from the right-wing extremists of both of these countries. Indeed, one Russian company, which went defunct, was set up in the middle of the US to assist the electoral campaign of US President Donald Trump (photo).
Are Malaysian authorities working with any of the questionable firms or foreign intelligence outfits referenced by Wylie? Are Cambridge Analytica and SCL propaganda arms of BN and Umno, paid utilising taxpayers’ money?
Unless Azrin steps forward with open revelations of everything that has actually transpired and is presently transpiring, the scandal of Cambridge Analytica, SCL and Facebook in Malaysia is only the tip of the iceberg.
The only way to change course is to start over with all related parties and beneficiaries to offer the truth, based on evidence and a paper trail.
Last week, I called for a parliamentary select committee to fully scrutinise the Cambridge Analytica scandal - instead of the current obsession by the executive to bulldoze so-called anti-fake news legislation. How can we in good conscience allow purported purveyors of fake news and illegal machinations to monitor fake news production?
The right to the truth and halting the ongoing abuse is the right of all Malaysian citizens and one of many elemental prerequisites in ensuring the 14th general election is free and fair.
NURUL IZZAH ANWAR is Lembah Pantai MP and PKR vice-president.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
