A look at the ad-targeting tools AggregateIQ left exposed online

The breach has given us the first good look at how the firm does what it does.

Throughout discussions about Cambridge Analytica, parent company Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) and how they came to obtain information on some 87 million Facebook users, you've probably also heard the name AggregateIQ. The Canada-based data firm has now been connected to Cambridge Analytica operations as well as US election campaigns and the Brexit referendum. Now, cybersecurity firm UpGuard has discovered a large code repository that AggregateIQ left exposed online, and through that we're getting a better look at the company, what it does and how it does it.

Before jumping into UpGuard's findings, let's review AggregateIQ. Whistleblower Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee who has been central to information about the company coming to light, told The Observer last month that he helped get AggregateIQ up and running in order to help SCL expand its operations. "Essentially it was set up as a Canadian entity for people who wanted to work on SCL projects who didn't want to move to London," he said. "That's how [AggregateIQ] got started: originally to service SCL and Cambridge Analytica projects." Earlier this month, Facebook suspended AggregateIQ for its connections with Cambridge Analytica and the possibility that it might, therefore, have some of the data Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained.

Though AggregateIQ and SCL have tried to distance themselves from each other lately, they worked quite closely together for some time. "AggregateIQ were the ones that took a lot of data that Cambridge Analytica would acquire and the algorithms they build, and translated that into the actual physical targeting online, they [AggregateIQ] were the bit that actually disseminated stuff," Wylie told The Observer. And AggregateIQ co-founder Jeff Silvester told Gizmodo recently, "We did some work with SCL and had a contract with them in 2014 for some custom software development. We last worked with SCL in 2016 and have not worked with them since." AggregateIQ's website now says it "has never been and is not a part of Cambridge Analytica or SCL" and that it "has never entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica."

Of course, now we know that Cambridge Analytica did improperly obtain information on 87 million Facebook users through researcher Aleksandr Kogan and that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz both used its services during their campaigns. We also now know that AggregateIQ developed some of the tools marketed by Cambridge Analytica and that it worked with a number of British political groups who campaigned in support of the UK leaving the European Union during the Brexit referendum.