Report: At least 91 companies in Canada’s Political Influence Industry

Businesses are handling Canadian voter data in ‘regulatory void’

July 30, 2024 — Today OpenMedia released The Political Influence Industry, a public data driven examination of businesses that gather data about Canadian voters on behalf of Canadian political parties. As an open-source exploration of an underregulated industry, OpenMedia’s new report is a peek at a probable iceberg of companies, not a comprehensive picture; it nonetheless found at least 91 companies were active in the industry between 2015 and 2024. Because political parties are neither private nor public entities, Canadian law currently places very few limits on their data collection activities, even when handling sensitive voter information.

“Today’s report should shock every Canadian. Our research uncovered a vast array of consultants and businesses collecting, analyzing and using sensitive information about Canadian voters– all in a near regulatory void,” said OpenMedia Executive Director Matt Hatfield. “They get away with it for just one reason: because they serve federal political parties. As our report describes, Canada is nearly alone amongst developed democracies in setting almost no external rules or oversight over the data practices of political parties. Yet unbelievably, rather than fixing this obvious problem, the federal Liberals, NDP and Conservatives are fighting in court to keep the status quo.”

“In the next few years, the union of big data and generative intelligence is going to make the micro-targeting of individual Canadians to try to influence our voting behaviour both easier and more powerful,” continued Hatfield. “That makes Canada’s failure to proactively regulate this shadowy industry’s activity a ticking time bomb not just for our personal privacy, but for the health of our democracy in the years ahead.”

Professor Colin Bennett, a key sponsor of the report,added: “I was delighted to partner with the team from OpenMedia on this important project. Through very careful analysis of the filings to election regulatory bodies, today’s report documents the companies that have been employed by Canadian political parties at federal, provincial and municipal levels. Nothing like this has been published before. This research sheds important light on this extensive network, and contributes to current debates about how better to protect personal data in the Canadian electoral environment.” 

Because political parties are neither public institutions, to which Canada’s Privacy Act applies, nor private sector organizations, to which the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act applies, they are currently largely exempt from privacy law at the federal level. In August 2022 BC’s privacy commissioner determined that political parties were not exempt from BC privacy law, and must seek consent for how they collect, use, and disclose the personal information of British Columbians, as public and private organizations are required to do. Rather than respect this decision, the federal Liberal, NDP and Conservative parties jointly filed suit against this decision. Their suit was dismissed in May 2024, and they are currently appealing the decision.

A broad consensus of authorities have called for political parties to be brought under federal privacy law, including the Chief Electoral Officer, federal, provincial, and territorial Information and Privacy Commissioners, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, and the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. An overwhelming 96% of Canadians in an Elections Canada survey say they believe laws should regulate how political parties collect and use our data.

Today’s report is the culmination of years of OpenMedia work documenting the failure of privacy law to cover federal parties and its consequences. It follows an earlier 2024 review of how their self-written privacy policies fail to meet reasonable standards for privacy protection, and years of earlier community campaigns. OpenMedia continues to campaign for the federal government to enact legislation to bring political parties under federal privacy law and protect the privacy and democratic rights of Canadians.