Cambrige Analytica’s Nigel Oakes admits he lacked ‘ethical radar’

SCL founder Nigel Oakes
praised former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander
Nix.
REUTERS/Henry
Nicholls

• Nigel Oakes, the founder of Cambridge Analytica’s
  parent company SCL Group, said in an interview that he operated
  “without much of an ethical radar.”
• He said the industry of data mining requires
  regulation, but had no concrete suggestions for how this might
  be enforced.
• Oakes also praised former Cambridge Analytica CEO
  Alexander Nix, who was previously his partner at SCL.

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Nigel Oakes, the founder of Cambridge Analytica’s parent
company SCL Group, has spoken out about the ethical problems
around data mining.

Nigel Oakes founded SCL in 2005, and spoke about his
experience on “The Truth Trade” podcast in what it is
one of the first in-depth interviews with a Cambridge
Analytica executive since the Facebook data scandal.

Oakes told the host Sven Hughes that when he got into data
analytics, ethics were far from his mind. Here’s his quote in
full, emphasis ours:

“It’s above my pay grade to decide the ethics of this. I’m proud
that I’ve got something that we’ve developed that works. I don’t
want it to be used for negative reasons and non-ethical purposes
and maybe using it for commercial purposes is non-ethical. Maybe
using it for political or election-winning purposes is unethical.

“But for many years I operated without much of an ethical
radar because I was just so impressed that we’d got
something that actually worked in an environment where so much
didn’t.”

Oakes repeatedly compared the analysis technology used at SCL as
a “gun,” referring to how it could be weaponized to get results,
whether in a commercial or political context.

He also said that the industry of data mining requires
regulation. “We’ve developed a gun that works. And should it be
regulated? Yes it should, very much so […] Now is the time when
regulation should come in, just as you would regulate gun sales
and whatever.”

He didn’t know exactly how the industry should be
regulated, however, and emphasised that almost all modern
companies use data mining to some extent.

He also spoke about his former SCL partner Alexander Nix, who
went on to become CEO at Cambridge Analytica. Oakes said that he
and Nix parted ways over the decision to get into big data.

He was guarded about commenting on whether Alexander Nix crossed
any ethical lines, but said “he wouldn’t have been so successful
if he wasn’t ballsy.” He even praised Nix for putting Cambridge
Analytica on the map.

“[Alexander] has the brains, enthusiasm and the drive to do
almost anything he wants […] If you look at the brand of
Cambridge Analytica, you could easily say, well, it’s poisonous,
it’s tainted, it’s negative, nobody would want to touch it. It’s
also the only data analytics company that is known worldwide,”
Oakes said.

“He’s still got the moniker of having been the CEO of a campaign
that knocked $60 billion off Facebook by opening up this
discussion and area and still not one illegal thing has been
committed that hasn’t been also done by Facebook and every other
data company. So I’m not defending Cambridge Analytica, but I
don’t actually know what they did wrong.”