Foreign states turning to big data to aid influence campaigns: intelligence official – National [Video]

Foreign state and non-state actors are increasingly hoovering up “big data” on Canadians to better focus their foreign influence campaigns, a senior intelligence official said Thursday.

Alia Tayyeb, the deputy chief of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), told the foreign interference inquiry that hostile intelligence agencies are gathering large amounts of data about Canadians’ personal lives to “help influence campaigns.”

“One of the newer developments in the threat landscape is the prevalence of personal information online about individuals. And so … one thing we’re seeing increasingly is the corollary of that is big data collection,” Tayyeb told the Hogue inquiry.

“So where state actors, and non-state actors quite frankly, collect personal information, commercial information, with an attempt to use that information for a variety of purposes which range from traditional espionage (or) in the context of this commission, for foreign interference activities as well.”

Tayyeb is the deputy chief at CSE responsible for signals intelligence — basically, collecting foreign …