Victoria company linked to Brexit allegations largely unknown in home city

AggregateIQ(AIQ), a Victoria-based firm that has been linked to an alleged schemeto sidestep Brexitspending limits,remains largely unknown to the tech industry in the city where it's based.

At a British parliamentary committee hearing this week, thedigital advertising, web and software development company was accusedofvoter manipulationin the Brexit campaignby whistleblower and former Victoria residentChris Wylie.

Wylieappeared before the parliamentary committee in the wake of the Facebook and Cambridge Analyticascandal.

Adata scientist who helped found Cambridge Analytica, Wylie allegedthatfirmimproperly harvested details of 50 million Facebook users and used the material in U.S. President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign.

'I don't know their team'

He also told the committee he believed AIQ had drawn on Cambridge Analytica's databases for its work on the Brexit referendum. The data would be used to influence what certain voters saw on social media, Wylie said.

The outsized role alleged for a small local company came as a shock to Dan Gunn, CEO of VIATEC, (the Victoria Innovation, Advanced Technology and Entrepreneurship Council), which has more than500 members.

"AggregateIQ had never joined our community and so I didn't know them personally and I don't know their team," Gunntold CBCThe Early Editionhost Stephen Quinn.

VIATECmembers are as curious as anyone about the company and therole they might have been playing internationally,he said.

"But we haven't been able to find out all that much. They're pretty tight lipped and keep things out of the public eye."

AggregateIQfeatures a number of election-related applicationson its website, as well as a recently added statement saying it has never knowinglybeen involved in any illegal activity.

It alsodenies having been a part of, or undercontract to, SCL and Cambridge Analytic,the companieslinked to misuse of personal Facebook data to sway voters in the BrexitandTrump campaigns.

Gunn said other tech companies in Victoria do the same general type of workas AIQ "what we would call performance marketing companies" developing targeted promotional campaigns with widely available information from Facebook andother social media platforms.

However, he said, he didn't know of any other companies involved in using performance marketing for political persuasion.

"I suspect that if they existed in any city, they'd probably keep that pretty undercover as well."

Not like selling shampoo and trucks

Gunn said most people accept that targeted commercial advertising for products such as shampoo and trucks ispart of the bargainfor users of the freeFacebook platform. But he saidit becomes a serious problem whenfalse stories and hoaxes are used to divide families and reinforcefearof people from other countries.

Gunn said he was unsure of whether the publicity over Aggregate IQ will leave a positive or negative impression about Victoria's tech sector.

"What it has done is it's at least got people talking about the tech sector in Victoria, which has been hard to do," he said.

With files from CBC Radio's On the Island and The Early Edition.