H&M Group hires Cambridge Analytica whistleblower

By Marjorie van Elven

Hennes & Mauritz AB, the company behind H&M, COS and Arket, among other brands, has signed a consultancy contract with Christopher Wylie, the Canadian whistleblower who exposed the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

In an email to FashionUnited, Helena Ohansson, spokesperson for the H&M Group, confirmed Wylie has joined the company in December in the role of Research Director. He is responsible for “improving the company’s capabilities within consumer, product and market insights”. In addition, Wylie will support the company’s work in “sustainable and ethical artificial intelligence”.

“We are very excited about the expertise within these areas that Christopher Wylie brings to the company”, said Ohansson.

To refresh your memory: Cambridge Analytica is a data analytics firm hired by Donald Trump’s election team and the pro-Brexit campaign, and headed at the time by Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon. Wylie, who used to work for the company, revealed in 2018 that data from over 50 million Facebook users had been harvested by a researcher named Aleksandr Kogan, who developed a personality test app which could access data not only of those who installed it to their Facebook profiles, but of their Facebook friends as well. Instead of deleting the data, Kogan sold it to Cambridge Analytica, which used it to send targeted political messages during the Trump and Brexit campaigns.