Labour: MI5 has proof Arron Banks had Information Commissioner under surveillance
Labour MP Liam Byrne alleged that the surveillance was ordered by Brexit backer Arron Banks
Labour MP Liam Byrne has claimed that former Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham was under intrusive surveillance during the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.
During a wider debate in the House of Commons last week, over the ability of super-wealthy individuals to silence critics using UK courts, Byrne alleged that the surveillance was ordered by major Brexit donor and co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign, Arron Banks. He also claimed that MI5 had gathered evidence about Banks' activity.
"I have been told Elizabeth Denham, who was the Information Commissioner at the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, was warned by counterterrorism officers that MI5 had evidence that she was under active intrusive surveillance ordered by Mr Arron Banks, so her office had to be swept," Byrne told the Commons.
Banks, a multi-millionaire businessman, was a leading figure in the Brexit referendum in 2016 through the Leave.EU group.
Leave.EU hired private political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, although the company did not receive payment for its work.
In 2018, the British firm was found to be collecting and using data from 87 million Facebook users, without their consent, to study their habits and find out the best way to influence their voting preferences in the 2016 US presidential elections. The company worked for, among others, both Donald Trump and fellow presidental candidate Ted Cruz.
The scandal raised red flags over how technology firms protect users' personal data. It also led to a public scandal for Facebook - eventually leading to a Congressional appearance by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Cambridge Analytica collapsed in 2018 after losing most of its suppliers and customers, following an exposé of its methods.
In a statement to The Independent, Banks said he had "heard enough crazy conspiracy theories to last me a lifetime".
"I'm not really interested in MPs that use parliamentary privilege to land allegations. Say it outside parliament," he added.
During the debate in the Commons last week, MPs urged ministers to take tough action against British multi-millionaires and foreign oligarchs who use the legal system to silence their critics.
David Davis, the former Tory Cabinet minister, called for the government to follow the example set by 31 states in the United States and introduce a ban on super-wealthy individuals using "strategic litigation" to curb free speech.
Stephen Kinnock, a Labour MP, said many lawyers are "doing the dirty work" for wealthy individuals and as well as hostile regimes.
He warned that Russian-backed interests are targeting people's private data, leaking it on the web and "then suing them for libel," describing the situation as "utterly absurd and unacceptable".
Banks has been repeatedly linked to Russian influence.