“The 2016 US Presidential Election: Did the Winner Have the Better Data?”

The conventional wisdom is that the modern political campaign in advanced democracies needs to be “data driven” to consolidate existing support and to find potential new voters and donors. The capture and consolidation of these data permit the construction of massive databases, the detailed profiling of individual voters and the “micro-targeting” of precise messages to increasingly refined segments of the electorate. With reference to the 2016 US Presidential election, Colin Bennett will discuss recent trends in “voter surveillance”, assess its effectiveness and consider the larger implications for privacy, civil liberties and other democratic values.