Monitoring Elections
The Data for Democracy Project aims to identify and recommend strategies, tools, and technology to protect democratic processes and systems from social media misinformation and disinformation. By creating a technology solution that permits observers to monitor election interference, we offer a unique and bipartisan approach to election monitoring. Built by experts in technology, and leaders in the cyber and national security world, DDP intends to offer concrete solutions to an urgent problem.
Non-state Internal and External actors, foreign nations are continuing in their efforts to undermine the electoral process. From dis-informaiton campaigns, including trolls, bots, and simply fake news media, these actors are trying to alter the outcome, and undermine confidence in our elections. The Data for democracy Project will help jurisdictions fortify themselves against these attacks by:
- Developing monitoring and listening solutions to detect dis-information and mis-information.
- Providing election administrators, election infrastructure providers, campaign organizations, and leaders involved in democratic processes with practical “playbooks” to improve their election monitoring and response;
- Developing strategies for how Canada and other democracies can credibly deter hostile actors from engaging in disinformation attacks;
- Assessing emerging technologies, such as AI, that may improve the ability to detect the online presence of misinformation and disinformation;
DDP is a Canadian initiative is led by Dr. Waël Hassan, a leader in Big Data Privacy, Security, and Election Protection.
“citizens across the globe are dismayed by the electoral process. Low voter turnouts and frustration over the inability to make a difference, they are looking for transparency and openness in election systems.”
This project brings together key leaders in Big Data, Social Media, National Security, and Privacy in politics, national security, and technology to generate innovative ideas to safeguard our democratic process.”
“The last three elections in Canada and the United States were plagued by misinformation and disinformation. “Many local and foreign actors, and sometimes terrorist organizations, exploit digital technology to advance their agendas and influence public discourse.” This project will find practical solutions to help parties and civic institutions that are critical to our elections better secure themselves and become more resilient to attacks.”
“disinformation is diluting our trust in the democratic process.” This means we all need to work together to address these vulnerabilities. “This project will bring together subject matter experts from cybersecurity, national security, technology, and election administration to make a difference.”
DDP focuses on creating Data science tools and models to support decision-makers.
Using Social Media Data to Transform Election Monitoring
Electoral Management Bodies are looking to social media
monitoring to battle election interference through disinformation campaigns. KI Design’s proven AI social media monitoring tools can detect disinformation and misinformation, and mitigate operational issues.
Providing timely insights and actionable information to support effective election delivery and communications, and to safeguard Canadians’ trust in the electoral process. The Data for Democracy Project utilizing a high performance data analytics platform KI Data supporting more than 150 languages. monitored keywords appearing in public posts on several social media networks, to detect:
- events that could impede electors or election delivery
- feedback on Elections Canada’s services
- websites and social media accounts that falsely claimed to belong to Elections Canada
- inaccurate information about the electoral process, whether intentional or unintentional
Election Monitoring improves situational awareness and helped respond to events such as weather, power outages, and road closures. KI Data provides real-time feedback from electors; this helps jursdictions more efficiently resolve issues, such as lineups at the polls and difficulties with the Elections web assets.
Citizens frequently comment online about their voting experience and perceptions of the election process. KI Data provides insights gained into voter perceptions and trust, such insights help inform longer-term communication and outreach plans.
KI Data, a high-performance big data platform detects numerous instances of impersonation of jurisdictional authority websites, in addition, it detected inaccurate information that interferes with electors’ ability to vote. The platform alerts enable authorities to report violations to social media platforms such as Twitter/Facebook. Platforms often respond quickly and shut down the offending sites.
It is possible that some platforms refuse to take down accounts due to inactivity or other reasons. Authorities are able to file complaints based on copyright infringements.