Dominic Cummings says move would prove campaign did not use data gathered improperly by Cambridge Analytica

The chief strategist of Vote Leave has called on Facebook to publish all the data it holds on his Brexit campaign group, challenging the social network to adopt a policy of radical transparency on the impact of targeted online adverts during the EU referendum.

Dominic Cummings said he “wouldn’t mind if Facebook wanted to take ALL of Vote Leave’s Facebook data” and put “the whole lot on its website available for download by anybody”.

He used a lengthy blogpost to explain that while such information is “normally considered very sensitive and never published by campaigns”, he now supported the publication of all the confidential data Facebook holds on Vote Leave.

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Facebook has until now released only parts of the data on the online advertising tactics used by Brexit referendum campaign groups, often in response to specific questions from MPs on the parliamentary select committee investigating fake news.

Cummings said he believed publishing the data would invite “serious academic scrutiny” of Vote Leave’s tactics and prove his campaign did not use data gathered improperly by the collapsed internet campaigns group Cambridge Analytica.

“We never saw/used/wanted the data improperly acquired by CA,” he said. “We did practically no ‘microtargeting’ in the normal sense of the term and zero using so-called ‘psychographics’.”

The Conservative MP Damian Collins, the chair of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, agreed with Cummings’s call for Facebook to release the data in its entirety.

However, he said it should be provided to MPs: “Transparency is essential if the public is to regain trust in political advertising on social media platforms. I would encourage Facebook to hand over any data it has on political advertising during the EU referendum to the committee.”



Cummings also called for the Electoral Commission to establish a public register of all online adverts, updated daily during elections, which would show exactly what all registered groups and political parties were doing online. “This would add only a tiny admin burden to a campaign but it would ensure that there is a full and accurate public record of digital campaigning,” he said.



Cummings, a former adviser to Michael Gove, will be played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a forthcoming TV series about Brexit. He rejected a formal summons from Collins’s select committee to give evidence in front of MPs on his campaign’s online activities.



Cummings said he had no time for parliament’s demands and would not be publicly shamed by parliament into answering questions against his will: “If you think I care about ‘reputational damage’, you are badly advised.”