Political Consultants: Campaigns Stay Clear Of Privacy Pitfalls

In the last presidential race, Obama for America 2012 campaign workers had an idea for an email initiative. They wanted to send supporters emails that would include other people's names and phone numbers, with instructions to call them and make sure they went to the polls. The campaign believed that doing so would have been legal, but nonetheless decided against it, according to Rayid Ghani, chief scientist of the Obama for America 2012 campaign. Speaking at a conference on Friday about data and political campaigns, Ghana said that campaigns, in some respects, “stay far away from the boundary” of what might offend voters, or draw criticisms in the press. “We couldn't do the whole experiment we wanted to do, because people were really worried about sending out personal information over e-mail,” he said.