News Analysis: Increasing use of big data in Israeli election raises questions

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, March 9, 2020
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by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, March 8 (Xinhua) -- When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his premature victory speech last week after the general election, he thanked a long list of people.

Netanyahu may not have clinched the majority needed to form a government in the parliament, but he did increase the size of his Likud party. Approximately 200,000 more votes were gained, translated into four more parliament seats and 36 in total.

Many names appeared on Netanyahu's "thank you" list, but there were a few unfamiliar to most. Before thanking some of the closest cabinet ministers, he thanked his campaign manager who introduced the use of an election management app called Elector in the campaign.

"Thank you Elector; thank you data," Netanyahu said.

While there was no clear winner in last week's election, one clear trend emerged. Big data, crowdsourcing and apps were increasingly used in the tool box of parties when they were trying to rally in voters.

The Likud led the way, with some of the smaller parties also using similar apps. Candidates in party primaries and runners in municipal races have also begun using the hi-tech tool recently.

"Crowdsourcing has become increasingly prevalent in the last decade," said Yael Amsterdamer, a senior lecturer at the Department of Computer Science in Bar-Ilan University and expert on databases and data management. "It is quite new in elections, however."

The Elector app is just one example of various similar apps on the market. The app uses legally granted access to Israel's voter registration. The list includes names, ID and phone numbers of over 6 million Israelis who are eligible to vote.

Volunteer campaigners downloaded the app and kept feeding the huge database with additional information.

It is estimated that thousands of Likud supporters downloaded the app. When meeting voters during the campaign, Netanyahu himself encouraged voters to download Elector.

Last week, as Israelis headed to the polls, users started adding layers of data to the database. Official observers who are also Likud supporters were asked to feed in live updates on voter turnout.

If someone didn't vote, they got an encouraging, not coincidental, phone call.

Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler is a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and head of IDI's Media Reform Program and Democracy in the Information Age Program.

"The use of the app did not intend to convert someone to be a Netanyahu supporter," she said. "It was meant to make people who were labeled as his supporters but didn't plan to vote to get out and vote."

According to Likud campaign members, the app was a major contributor to the increase in voters. They believe tens of thousands of the votes added to the party this time around were brought in with help from Elector.

"The Likud managed to significantly increase voting in areas where it was weak in the September election," Altshuler added. "This demonstrates that they worked with the data and used it to get people to vote and did not waste critical time on people who voted already or do not support the Likud. They were very focused."

Prior to the last election round, Altshuler appealed to the Israeli supreme court to forbid the use of the Elector app because of security breaches in it, the use of sensitive information of potential voters by political parties, and the myriad of other problems it presents. But the appeal was denied.

"It allows a political party to obtain and hold a lot of data on citizens," she told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

Days ahead of the March 2 election, the huge Likud database was leaked online. This was enabled by a flaw in the app and exposed the huge amount of information the party had gathered on the voters.

"We are in an age where we adopt technology very quickly and often we still do not know how to deal with the consequences, for example privacy settings," Amsterdamer told Xinhua.

Netanyahu has been a champion of hi-tech and big data in recent years. In his tenure, Israel has solidified its global position as a hi-tech hub, or "Start-Up Nation" as it is often referred to.

But the use of such data is not without risk.

"Data is like uranium, it has a lot of potential and energy," said Altshuler. "But it can also be toxic and needs to be used wisely."

The risk is not only internal. Once data is exposed, it can be used by hostile entities outside of Israel.

"It can be a very effective tool for a foreign country to meddle in Israeli elections," Altshuler added.

The response of the Israeli courts and legislative bodies has so far been lackluster, as if unaware of the huge impact such processes can have on the country. As Israel struggles to overcome political paralysis as a result of three indecisive election results, it is difficult to see it tackling this important issue in the immediate future. Enditem

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