SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories) was a private British behavioural research and strategic communication company that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving its subsidiaries Cambridge Analytica and Crow Business Solutions MENA. It was founded in 1990 by Nigel Oakes, who served as its CEO. The company described itself as a "global election management agency". The company's leaders and owners had close ties to the Conservative Party, the British royal family, British military, United States Department of Defense and NATO and its investors included some of the largest donors to the Conservative Party.
History
In 1990, Nigel Oakes, who had a background in TV production and advertising, founded the Behavioural Dynamics Institute (BDI) as a research facility for strategic communication. The study of mass behaviour and how to change it led him to establish Strategic Communication Laboratories in 1993. Oakes thought that to shift mass opinion, academic insights as gained through psychologists and anthropologists at BDI should be applied, and would be more successful than traditional advertising methods. BDI became a non-profit affiliate of SCL. Among the investors in SCL were banker Paul David Ashburner Nix, whose son Alexander Nix was to become a close associate of Oakes. One of the former directors is Lord Ivar Mountbatten. Among the investors in the company were Jonathan Marland, Baron Marland and Roger Gabb, a major Conservative Party donor who was registered as having significant control over the company as of 2018.
Activities
After an initial commercial success, SCL expanded into military and political arenas. It became known for alleged involvement "in military disinformation campaigns to social media branding and voter targeting". SCL began targeting elections in developing countries in the early 1990s, and has engaged in psychological warfare in military contexts as a contractor for the American and British militaries during the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War. It performed data mining and data analysis on its audience. Based on results, communications would then be specifically targeted to key audience groups to modify behaviour in accordance with the goal of SCL's client.
In 2005, "with a glitzy exhibit" at Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI), "the United Kingdom's largest showcase for military technology", SCL demonstrated its capacity in "influence operations": "to help orchestrate a sophisticated campaign of mass deception" on the public of a big city like London. According to its website, SCL has participated in over 25 international political and electoral campaigns since 1994.
SCL's involvement in the political world has been primarily in the developing world where it has been used by the military and politicians to study and manipulate public opinion and political will. It uses what have been called "psy ops" to provide insight into the thinking of the target audience. SCL claimed to be able to help foment coups. According to its website, SCL has influenced elections in Italy, Latvia, Ukraine, Albania, Romania, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Colombia, Antigua, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Kitts & Nevis, and Trinidad & Tobago. While the company initially got involved in elections in the United Kingdom, after 1997 it only engaged non-election campaigns because staff members did not exhibit the same "aloof sensibility" as with projects abroad.
In 2013 it established the subsidiary Cambridge Analytica that worked on the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns during the 2016 US presidential election and even now the proclaimed associated office in Cairo that opened during the global pandemic of COVID-19. In 2020 it was linked to the Bahraini company named Crow Trading ltd. that was founded by Dr. Mohamed Y. Abdelrahman, an Egyptian scientist in behavioral psychology.
SCL claims that its methodology has been approved or endorsed by agencies of the Government of the United Kingdom and the United States federal government, among others.