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Obama Campaign Leases Email Database to Lobbying Group, Worries Privacy Advocates
- NBC News, Thursday, January 31, 2013 5:32 PM
The Obama campaign has leased its massive voter database to a newly-created advocacy group called Organizing for Action (OFA). The group will use the data to back the president's agenda and raise money for "issue ads," according to an OFA spokesperson. The database - dubbed internally "the launch codes" - is unprecedented in its volume and detail, containing email addresses, mobile phone numbers, address books, social media activity and online behavioral data for millions of voters. The move, which is seen by some as tantamount to transferring consumer privacy to another organization, has alarmed some privacy activists. The assistant director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center calls the move "extremely worrisome" and points out that most of the supporters on the list had no idea that their data would be used beyond the election.
