The Philadelphia Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity has been requesting citizens to provide personal information such as their pronouns, sex, race, sexual orientation, and disability status.
The office claims that this information will enable them to "better serve the residents of Philadelphia." This data collection is part of an "optional demographic questions" section on a form required for those wishing to participate in the city's Civic Engagement Academy Learning Series class, "Leading a Community Meeting." The form is "powered by NGP VAN."
As reported by The Federalist, NGP VAN is a leading technology provider for Democratic and progressive political campaigns, organizations, nonprofits, municipalities, and other groups. The city of Philadelphia has been gathering personal information about its citizens through NGP VAN for several years. Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow with The Heritage Foundation, has previously expressed concerns about this practice, stating that it raises "all kinds of potential legal issues."
The same company is now guiding political activists on which citizens to approach about voting, using its Democrat-only MiniVAN application. MiniVAN is a tool used nationwide by Democrat door knockers. Volunteers download the app to their phones, which provides them with a list of people to visit. The app creates a map of addresses, shows how many voters are in each home, provides a script to read, and importantly, a place to upload notes that will be added to the Democrat knowledge base.
The MiniVAN app is currently seeing extensive use in Philadelphia. NGP VAN recently reported on social media that the app was used more in Philadelphia earlier this month than in other major cities across the nation. Pennsylvania, a battleground state with 19 coveted electoral votes, is a prime target for both parties. To win the Commonwealth, candidates need a strong showing in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs.
Detailed information about voters, such as age, sex, and language, can be incredibly useful in predicting which candidate a voter may support. This kind of data can be instrumental in winning elections, especially when compiling a list of people to target for voter registration, mail-in voting, and ballot harvesting. Republican operatives in Pennsylvania, who wished to remain anonymous, admitted that they use a different app for door-knocking, but they believe Democrats have better data.
The use of MiniVAN is not limited to Philadelphia; it's also being used in other battleground cities. The top 10 cities with the highest use of the app earlier this month were Philadelphia, Chicago, Phoenix, Raleigh, Atlanta, New York City, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Boston, and Detroit. This indicates where Democrats are focusing their ground game.
NGP VAN did not respond to a request for an interview for this story.
Philadelphia citizens who interact with the citys websites are often prompted to provide their private information to NGP-VAN. For instance, to volunteer with the Office of Children and Families, individuals have the option to disclose their occupation and employment status. To receive emails from the City of Philadelphia Board of Ethics, individuals must fill out a form with their postal code and email. All these forms are connected to NGP-VAN.
NGP-VAN also offers a service called FastAction, which holds user information to populate forms automatically. On some Philadelphia forms, users must uncheck a box to opt out of signing up for FastAction. The program is described as a safe and secure way for you to save your contact and payment information, allowing you to easily show your support in the future with a single click.
FastAction's goal is not merely to simplify the user experience. The FastAction website states, Our goal is to create a network of supporters that will help our clients win! The FastAction privacy policy connects a lot of company names, primarily Bonterra, the parent of them all.
Bonterra LLC is an online, cloud-based service platform that provides individuals and organizations the ability to contribute to, organize, and manage their causes. Bonterra Services include EveryAction, Mobilize, NGP VAN, CyberGrants, Network for Good, Social Solutions, and the respective individualized service offerings thereunder.
Most individuals who sign up for FastAction through NGP-VAN will likely never read the 5,000-word privacy notice. Nor are they likely to make the connection that, after they agree to the policy, NGP- VANs MiniVAN app might have access to their private data they provided city government.
The privacy policy informs users that the platforms Services, which includes NGP-VAN, collect contact information, age, sex, political and professional affiliations, interests in charitable causes, occupation, the type of event you signed up for, the organizations affiliated with the event, whether you made a donation, and more.
The company may combine your information with information it collects through third parties such as public databases, according to the privacy policy, to build a file on you with even more information than you realized you gave them. It may even pick up information from your social networking sites or ask to view or download your Google Sheets or Google Drive.
The company uses the information in numerous ways, including to facilitate your engagement with the company and its organizations, and to [r]ecommend opportunities to engage with other organizations and campaigns that use [their] Services, according to the privacy policy.
The data collection is widespread, going well beyond Philadelphia. The FastAction service can collect user data through many well-known Democrat political campaigns. It reaches across the country, collecting data through issues-based websites promoting partisan environmental concerns, advocating for abortion, and seeking fracking bans.
This vast network of data collection can be harnessed to win elections for Democrats. Republicans, however, do not appear to possess a similar level of sophistication. This raises questions about the fairness of the electoral process and the privacy rights of citizens. The extent of data collection and its potential misuse is a matter of concern that warrants further investigation and regulation.
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