Sources for Your Investigation
In this section, guest author and researcher Tetyana Bohdanova details types of information and gives helpful tips about best practices for gathering research evidence.
1. Primary sources of information on political actors:
Political parties/candidates’ websites and/or their official campaigning websites are the logical first information to review in the course of your investigation. For instance, check whether the websites have privacy policies or otherwise outline what the parties/candidates/campaigns claim to do with the personal data of their supporters – if anything. Are the web resources through which voters' personal data is collected secure? Do the web resources meet all of the legal requirements? And do the actual data practices of these actors coincide with their own policies/claims? This is where an understanding of digital campaigning practices, digital security knowledge, and legal expertise are important.
The same questions may be asked with regards to other digital campaigning tools used by the subjects of your investigation, for example: social media pages, messengers, chatbots, mobile applications, emailing software, online survey tools, etc.
You could also try to conduct interviews with the members of campaign headquarters, as well as consultants working for them.
Author's Tip: Should you discover any significant security vulnerabilities of the research subjects' digital tools, it is best to alert the entities directly and allow them the opportunity to fix the issues before making your findings public.See for yourself:
Ukraine: During the investigation in the 2019 Ukrainian Parliamentary elections, the team reviewed the Privacy Policies found on the websites of the main political parties against the country's Personal Data Protection regulations. The team then checked whether the same Privacy Policy claims also applied to the parties' social media tools and accounts. The research team found that none of the investigated parties fulfilled the state data protection regulations in full when using digital campaigning tools. Read the report.
A screenshot of a registration form on the European Solidarity party’s website with a consent statement that fails to fully inform subscribers about how their data would be used., Source: Bohdanova Ukraine 2019 elections research
A screenshot of the interaction with the Servant of the People party’s Telegram bot, which provided no information about data collection or asked for user’s permission., Source: Bohdanova Ukraine 2019 elections research
France: In the 2017 Presidential elections, the French Data Protection office investigated a mobile campaigning app, which identified and geo-located Sarkozy supporters for door-to-door campaigning. The probe prompted a public debate about the app, as some voters found the technology invasive. Read the Report
A screenshot of Knockin, an app developed and used by French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy’s team. The mobile phone application shows a map with red spots, each of which identifies a supporter of the right-wing candidate at their address. Source: Forbes France 2018
2. Secondary sources of information
While primary sources are important, they can be difficult to obtain or the individuals might be too closely intertwined with the campaign to give new insights. Therefore, secondary sources of information remain an important tool for investigations: look for media publications or any other public commentary on the topic.
Data provided by the digital platforms themselves (e.g., transparency reports, political ad libraries, etc) are another good source of information for an investigation.
In addition, you may review reports and investigations by the media, as well, if available, as by watchdog organisations.
Finally, you may also submit official requests for information to the relevant authorities. This can usually be done within the framework of Access to Information laws that regulate access to the information held by public bodies. In the context of such investigations, relevant bodies may be the state data protection authority (if such an office is available) or other regulatory or law enforcement bodies tasked with protecting citizens' data rights.
In Practice:
In 2020, ProPublica and the NYU Cybersecurity for Democracy program developed a project that collected digital political advertisements that ran on Facebook around the world. See for yourself.
3. Possible limitations
Beware of potential limitations that you might face in your investigation. For instance, you may only be able to conduct a limited, external review of the websites and other digital campaigning tools used by the election candidates as campaigns are unlikely to provide back-end access.
Similarly, you might not be able to gain direct "insider" access to information from campaign consultants or industry representatives and should therefore not build your investigation around such expectations.
Bear in mind that any analysis involving extensive data collection over a period of time (i.e., monitoring digital campaigning practices of the selected actors) requires technical capabilities and knowledge. Likewise, the available tools might still be limited in their reach. Collected data would need to be systematised and analysed. Additionally, there may be time limitations on collecting data needed for your analysis as the websites and platforms could be disabled or taken down after the campaigning period.
Author's Tip: Decide how much data is enough for your investigation. It is a good practice to set the minimum and maximum targets for yourself ahead of collecting information.Additionally, each digital platform's level of transparency may differ from country to country, or even from election to election. In some cases, no transparency tools may be made available at all. Existing limitations should not discourage you from conducting the investigation as reporting on the lack of information could become the story itself.
See for yourself:
United Kingdom: This country study from 2018 showcases how the information about the data-driven practices in the UK remain opaque. Read the report.