The crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca scan­dal and its in­volve­ment in an al­leged breach of da­ta pri­va­cy laws in Trinidad and To­ba­go is now closed.This was dis­closed dur­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s week­ly news brief­ing at the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Jayson Forde said the mat­ter was in­ves­ti­gat­ed but their best at­tempts to reach da­ta an­a­lyst and au­thor Christo­pher Wylie were un­suc­cess­ful.

In No­vem­ber 2019, Gov­ern­ment an­nounced an in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be raised in­to Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca’s role and Wylie’s claims in his book, Mind f..k – CA and the plot to break Amer­i­ca, re­gard­ing a breach of the pri­va­cy of Trinida­di­ans which in­volved ac­cess­ing their on­line brows­ing in­for­ma­tion and lo­ca­tion da­ta.
Wylie, who worked with Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca, al­so made claims re­gard­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ in­volve­ment, which the par­ty has de­nied.
The Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca’s web­site, which since been tak­en down, cit­ed the UNC’s ‘Do So’ cam­paign as one of its case stud­ies, say­ing the com­pa­ny’s meth­ods re­sult­ed in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship’s elec­tion vic­to­ry.

Ac­cord­ing to Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca, it al­so sup­port­ed the then PP coali­tion with on­go­ing ad­vice.
Yes­ter­day, Forde said he took the lead in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, prob­ing Wylie’s claim in the book that he had ac­cessed in­for­ma­tion on T&T with the in­ten­tion of in­ter­fer­ing with the elec­toral process in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.
“The al­le­ga­tion, I re­peat al­le­ga­tion is that some­time in year 2009 or 2010, da­ta an­a­lyst and au­thor Christo­pher Wi­ley had ac­cessed elec­tron­ic da­ta of the cit­i­zens of T&T with the in­ten­tion of in­ter­fer­ing with elec­tron­ic process of this coun­try,” Forde said.
He said the TTPS be­came aware of the al­le­ga­tion in Oc­to­ber 2019.

“The in­for­ma­tion we got was Mr Wi­ley was some­where in the UK, Eng­land so forth. As such, sev­er­al at­tempts were made to com­mu­ni­cate with sev­er­al per­sons and or­gan­i­sa­tions we felt could have as­sist­ed our in­ves­ti­ga­tions.
“These com­mu­ni­ca­tions were made by way of tele­phone, What­sapp mes­sag­ing, elec­tron­ic mail, and writ­ten doc­u­ments. In the main, the in­ves­tiga­tive team had no re­spons­es from these per­sons or or­gan­i­sa­tions that we reached out to.

“In light of that, as far as we are con­cerned we are stumped and as such the TTPS is clos­ing this in­ves­ti­ga­tion pend­ing the emer­gence of ev­i­dence to sup­port the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith al­so said the mat­ter which con­cerned the “al­leged un­law­ful ac­cess­ing of elec­tron­ic da­ta” had been in­ves­ti­gat­ed and was now closed.
“This is what we have to go through as the TTPS. Some­body can go on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form, make an ac­cu­sa­tion, with ab­solute­ly noth­ing to show that this took place, and then a man with an or­ange head de­cides to write a book and this be­comes news and gos­sip and the po­lice ser­vice has to utilise all of our re­sources to as­cer­tain if it is true or not,” Grif­fith said.
“It makes it very dif­fi­cult for us, but I gave the as­sur­ance then and will give the as­sur­ance now, we will close all gates one way or the oth­er. Not in any way to try to please any­one on any side or any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue on his Face­book page yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said, “I pre­sume that the au­thor­i­ties in the British Par­lia­ment and the US Con­gress are deliri­ous and the Trinidad men­tioned in all these pro­ceed­ings is not a re­al place but a lo­ca­tion in a movie on Net­flix and all the sub­ject of some­one’s imag­i­na­tion.

“This is my Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca com­ment on the clo­sure, in Trinidad, its birth­place, as it re­mains wide open and trou­bling in Eng­land and Amer­i­ca.”

(RDR)